RE: [xsl] when to use xslt

["Mark Lundquist" <ml@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From: Henning Waack [mailto:henning.waack@xxxxxx]
>
> I'am looking for argument for and against xslt, that is when
> is it useful to use (the functional language) xslt, when to
> use some imperative programming language?\

It's not really a functional-vs.-imperative question.

IMHO the test of suitability would be something like this:

If you have input data in the form of an XML tree...

...and you want to do a transformation that will yield a result in the form
of an XML tree...

...then you should first consider a language that is designed for
transforming XML trees, such as XSLT, STX or XQuery.  That's why those
languages exist -- so that you don't have to reinvent the wheel.

Obviously this suitability test can be stretched into something absurd,
e.g.:

	input:

		<number-of-primes>6<number-of-primes>

	output:

		<primes>1,2,3,5,7,11</primes>

Using XLST to do that computation would not be a great idea :-)...

HTH,
-ml-