Re: [xsl] What PC Windows editor are People using for XSL stylesheet coding

["Michele R Combs mrrothen@xxxxxxx" <xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

bunmanageably monstrous stylesheetsb lol
Too trueb&

From: Ihe Onwuka ihe.onwuka@xxxxxxxxx
[mailto:xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, November 07, 2014 1:16 PM
To: xsl-list
Subject: Re: [xsl] What PC Windows editor are People using for XSL stylesheet
coding

My elders and betters will correct me if I am wrong but the gold standard for
an xml editor seems to be oxygen.

Let me out myself as a heretic here on the grounds that my personal bias tend
towards minimalism but I do have what I think is an objective observation to
make because even if I were a paid up believer that IDE's are all good  I have
(on multiple occasions) observed   a double edged sword.

Editors  that have debugger's (i.e not just oxygen) enable people who are
asked to write XSLT despite not being familiar with the language (the
intersection of those sets is very large) to create unmanageably monstrous
stylesheets whose maintenance and update is totally reliant on the
availability of the debugger.

Whether that is a cuss or comp is for the reader to decide but since this is
my post I will eschew any such diffidence.

Now I understand such is not necessarily the exclusive preserve of XSLT but
given that we are talking about a non-sequential declarative language the word
that first sprung to my mind in relation to this state of affairs was
insidious.

I don't know the half of the capabilities of the tool, I am sure there are
good reasons why it is the gold standard and in fact this observation is not
about oxygen specifically. But what I am saying is that without  debugging
facilities these stylesheet monstrosities could never be created and (one
would like to think) their creators may weel be be forced into better software
engineering practices.

I'm not even going to try and weigh that against the good things these tools
are said to facilitate but I think it is an observation worth making.

Call it an unintended consequence of the technology.



On Fri, Nov 7, 2014 at 5:39 PM, Catherine Wilbur
cwilbur@xxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:cwilbur@xxxxxxxxxxx>
<xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxx
rytech.com>> wrote:
What PC WIndows editor are people using for their XSL stylesheet coding?

I am currently using editx - xmleditor (freeware version)

Are there some better ones out there that we could be using?

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Catherine Wilbur
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