Re: [xsl] A Question **TO** XSLT Newbies

Subject: Re: [xsl] A Question **TO** XSLT Newbies
From: Ray Tayek <rtayek@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2003 15:24:57 -0700
At 09:46 AM 4/21/03 +0100, Andrew Watt wrote:
...
I would be very interested to receive reactions of XSLT newbies to something I am exploring as a way to help newcomers to XSLT to be able to help themselves in solving XSLT programming tasks. ...

i am a newbie to xsl (but an old programmer). it was a lot of nonsense until i went thrpught a bunch of books. harold's seemed to be the real good (but i like java).



I don't recall seeing this approach anywhere explicitly used. If I am re-inventing the wheel someone will no doubt let me know.

OK, what I have in mind ... for written teaching material on XSLT ... is as follows.

To approach an XSLT task you simply declare (in writing) what it is that you want to do.

1. Say what output you want
2. Say what source data you want to output in what way
3. Piece together the XSLT and XPath to achieve what you want as output

no sure what that means, but (being a recycled mathematician), i've always thought that xslt was all about transfromations between trees (some people say it's just lisp in disguise, but i am not a lisper or schemer).


it sounds like your approach might be similar to what i have in mind. one might be able to use examples about pruning and grafting and morphing fruits on fruit trees for example.

oh yes, and xpath was terribly confusing (and still is). the syntax and semantics seem very inconsistant (sorta like perl). i mean it's juts a tree, how hard can it be to specify a path to some node. it's craziness is probably due to being designed by a committee.

thanks


--- ray tayek http://tayek.com/ actively seeking mentoring or telecommuting work vice chair orange county java users group http://www.ocjug.org/ hate spam? http://samspade.org/ssw/


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