[xsl] [Musing] User Preference for Functional Programming

[Hank Ratzesberger <xml@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello XSL users.

I am only conversing here, I hope not to take your time if you are not
interested.

At my work I went out of my way to create a way to script the update
of a JAXB object by converting it to XML.  it's about 90% XSL, but the
issue is that I learned that this had been tried before I came to the
company and they concluded it was difficult to maintain.

For example, they preferred Java code that looks like this:

  awardType.getAwardID().getAwardContractID().setModNumber(fpdsInfo.getModNum());

 over a lines in a resource file that look like the following (an
XPath and table:column pair)

  /award/awardID/awardContractID/modNumber=FpdsInfo:modNum

And a colleague spoke to me and said, 'Well, I much prefer action
words, they explain what is happening'

To which I said, I much prefer, that for some operation, the code
_always_ does the same action on data that _always_ is formatted the
same.

So I wondered, is this really the issue?  The preference to use
objects and functions over declarative statements, because the logic
behind <template> etc., is very powerful and consistent.  I would not
want to re-create it.

Meanwhile in the OOP world, GOF and other patterns, Java Beans, etc.,
etc,, all attempt to standardize structure and methodology, a problem
that DOM and XSLT go very far to solving.

Cheers,
Hank


--
Hank Ratzesberger
XMLWerks.com