Re: [xsl] Netscape XSL and ' charcter

Subject: Re: [xsl] Netscape XSL and ' charcter
From: David Carlisle <davidc@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 13 Apr 2002 12:49:39 +0100

   There are practical applications for client-side transformations,
   such as apps that are built from a browser's API, or just plain old
   fashioned tinkering and learning, but if you're just trying to
   display XML from the browser and expose your results to the masses, I
   would think that the resources involved (from an expense point) would
   be better directed towards running server-side transformations.


I think that I fundamentally disagree with this. There are some issues
with support on current browsers (especially NS which picked up a very
early and really flaky version of the Transformiix XSLT engine) The
current version in mozilla is much better. But that is just a
(hopefully) transient problem, browsers get updated.

I would say that client side transforms are (or at least were
originally) the _main_ point of XML. XML was conceived as
SGML-for-the-web, that is a light weight version of SGML that could be
_served_ over the web, and would have a light weight presentation
language (compared to DSSSL) so that served data could be browsed.

If you are only going to serve your data downgraded into an HTML
presentation view, then really there is not so much advantage in having
it in a lightweight format on the server, it could have been full SGML,
or a database or anything else. XML was designed to be served over the
web, and that implies processing at the receiving end, not the serving
end. 

David


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