Re: [xsl] XSLT vs Web Components

["Michael Kay mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx" <xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Well, the vast majority of XSLT use is server side, and web components aren't
likely to affect that directly. It's true that a lot of people are moving
towards maintaining content in HTML5 as their master format, replacing things
like Docbook and DITA, but it's a mistake to think that eliminates the need
for transformation: it just becomes a transformation from one HTML5 document
to another, in place of a transformation from (say) DocBook to HTML5.

In addition half of all XML and all XSLT is processing data, things like
financial transactions, rather than web pages. That's under threat in the long
term from JSON perhaps, but not from web components.

It's not clear whether you are talking about the future of client-side XSLT,
or of XSLT generally.

I would like to think that the only thing that will lead to XSLT's decline is
when someone invents something better, and there's no sign of that on the
horizon. This might be wishful thinking, however; there were some excellent
special-purpose languages in the 1980s that didn't survive because they didn't
have a viable user and developer community, despite being ideally suited to
their task.

Frankly, finding out what the current state of play is (how many XSLT
developers are there?) is hard enough without even trying to predict how that
state will change in the future.

Michael Kay
Saxonica
mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx
+44 (0) 118 946 5893




On 11 Sep 2014, at 15:46, Matthew L. Avizinis matt@xxxxxxxxx
<xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hello all,
> One of the primary uses of XSLT is transforming xml to html, it seems like.
I don't have data handy, but based on what I've read on this list over the
past dozen years or so, seems like a reasonable enough conclusion.
> I've recently been reading about X-Tags, Polyfil, Web Components, etc., and
tinkering with it. (for instance, x-tags.org, webcomponents.org, and
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Apps/Tools_and_frameworks/x-tags).
> It seems like pretty cool stuff and it occurs to me that by using it one
could pretty much eliminate the use of xslt for such transformation, if I
understand it correctly.  From my own perspective, it occurred to me that an
xul and xslt based xml editor (from the now-hibernated Etna) and content
management system interface I was working on for my employer until about a
year ago, could instead be refactored using web components.
> 1) Do you think the web components concept will catch on widely?  2) will
they be supported by browser developers natively eventually, do you suppose?
and finally, 3) do you think it will as a result have a major effect on the
use of xslt, resulting in it's decline?
> Thank you in advance as always for your considered and often witty
observations.
> --
> Regards,
> Matthew L. Avizinis
> Gleim Publications, Inc
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