Re: [xsl] Rexsel — A simpler way of writing XSLT

["Graydon graydon@xxxxxxxxx" <xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, Jun 30, 2024 at 10:06:01PM -0000, Liam R. E. Quin
liam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx scripsit:
> A companion question is also interesting though - how do you made an
> XSLT that is useful for, and appeals to, curly-brace-programming
> people? I think Rexsel moves in that direction, but to get there today
> itbd use a pure JavaScript and/or CSS syntax.

I think this one has two answers.

One is that the degree to which the syntax is the problem is always
small; the actual problem is thinking in trees, and if someone is
uncomfortable with thinking in trees they're never going to like
manipulating XML because it will always feel like wading through tar.
(These days, you can get new grads who have been subjected to a lot of
academic material around large language models and other AI techniques
and who are as a result comfortable with trees; all you have to with
them is be patient as they're horrified at having to quote string values
and troubled by map being derived from function.)

Two is that XQuery has mostly done it already. It wouldn't be all that
hard to add template processing syntax to existing XQuery, though I
don't expect anyone wants to implement the resulting language.

-- Graydon

-- 
Graydon Saunders  | graydonish@xxxxxxxxxxxx
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