Re: [xsl] XSLT In the Build Process?

[Mitch Amiano <mitch.amiano@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Passin, Tom wrote:
> [me@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
> > > Mitch Amiano wrote:
snip
> > > > using XML, and used XSLT templates to pump out C++.
> > > > Anyone else have experience long-term 
> > > > applying a similar approach?
> > I have used XML + XSLT = SQL on several projects to
> > allow for webservice type database control. Works well.
> I have used xslt to create SQL DDL for creating database tables to hold
> data from HTML forms, where the form itself was created from an XML file
> using xslt.  The same XML templates that were transformed (with xslt)
> into the form served as the source for the DDL.

We used to do this sort of thing with 4GL languages and Unix scripts (perl/awk/sed). So XML has completed the displacement of 4GL environments begun by HTML forms. 

I like the idea that such a solution can be tailor fit to the local needs, and despite this highly specialized customization and integration you *still* end up with a production system implemented with understandable components and standardized languages.

However, I've found it is still difficult to get developers to understand the semantics - this being perhaps the most difficult part of transitioning and getting such a tool adopted by others - and moreso if the XML encodes just a characterization of the domain. If it attempts to be a programming language, it seems to be easier to get programmers to adopt it, but conversely less useful as a code factoring tool.

- Mitch






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