Re: [xsl] XSLamenT

["Abel Braaksma (online)" <abel.online@xxxxxxxxx>]

> What year was XSLT 1.0 and what year is it now?  We are not talking
> about 1905, the shattering of Newtonian Physics, and the time that
> it took to reach critical mass (in some ways sadly for humanity).
> Internet adoption time ought be much short than that, as evidenced
> by other, almost-viral, technologies.
>

1997 - 2007 ;)

Different technologies take different time to market. But, even in
the so-called fast paced world of the internet, things tend to go
slower than they sometimes seem to be. To name a few related and
lesser related examples:

AJAX
Still a buzzword in 2003, hitting the market (critical mass) only
since people realised that the technique was actually really easy
and that Google was making tons of dollars with it, which imho
really started of in end 2005. But the original technique needed to
make AJAX work was invented and implemented in 1999. Make note that,
with a few exceptions, most AJAX implementations make more or less
use of XSLT.

RUBY
Everything is all about Ruby these days, it seems. Many books, many
websites, etc etc. But that's since two or three years ago, Ruby On
Rails came out of beta phase and helped increase the popularity of
Ruby because it made AJAX (see above ;) so easy. Note that the first
stable Ruby version started at 1995.

Compact Disc
The data and music cds as we know it were invented back in 1979 and
introduced in 1982, but it took the market about six years before it
really received public acceptance and took over the larger  part of
Gramophones.

Visual Basic
Only gained popularity from version 3.0 and onwards. XSLT is only at
its second version ;), though VB only took three years from 1.0 to
3.0 and XSLT took 10. But VB is not standardized.

XSLT
Though compared to other languages (c++, VB, Delphi, Java) quite
easy to learn and master I don't believe it should be compared like
that because it is not a general purpose language. It should be
compared to other languages that people use occasionally to do a
certain task, like VBA, WPM (ancient, I know), perhaps JavaScript
(really not easy) and WML, in which case the typical learning period
takes a couple of weeks for most, and that is the same with XSLT.

But it is hard to compare  apples and pears. I believe that
'critical mass' will be received shortly, and I do mean in another
2-3 years, which is pretty fast if you compare it to other slow
starters, perhaps pretty slow if you compare it to fast starters ;).
Considering the target market: considering the niche of data
transformations and its use, hidden somewhere in a larger system
(EAI etc), doesn't help it gain popularity quickly, though the need
is high (though not always recognized)


---

About your earlier remark about jobs in XSLT: it is often not
mentioned in the same manner  that it is often not mentioned that
they require a system administrator to do some Bash stuff every now
and then. BEA uses it, Websphere uses it, Cocoon uses it, as does
Microsoft Office (in sharepoint:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointdesigner/HA100948041033.aspx#1)
and MS BizTalk server uses it at large (any EAI with web services is
 almost impossible without XSLT, i think). When you apply for any
job that mentions one of these or many other products that use XSLT,
you know that XSLT knowledge is a pre for those jobs.
ac
Cheers and wishes for good weather over there!

Abel