Re: [xsl] <quote>XSL is NOT easy</quote>

["M. David Peterson" <m.david@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 26 Jun 2007 01:45:50 -0600, M. David Peterson  
<m.david@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> <quote>
> LISP is worth learning for a different reason b the profound  
> enlightenment experience you will have when you finally get it. That  
> experience will make you a better programmer for the rest of your days,  
> even if you never actually use LISP itself a lot.
> </quote>
>  Eric S. Raymond, "How to Become a Hacker" @  
> http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html

Here's another really good quote which is where I originally located the  
above quote,

<quote>
This melding of code and data is central to all dialects of Lisp, and is  
fundamental to the way Microsoft is integrating multiple expression  
languages (most notably SQL) in future versions of the MicrosoftB. .NET  
Framework.
</quote>

-- Don Box, "Scheme is Love", MSDN Magazine {End Bracket}, October, 2005 @  
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/05/10/EndBracket/

In short, while functional programming languages such as Lisp, Scheme,  
Haskell, XSLT, and XQuery might seem difficult to understand, their  
influence on the main stream programming languages of the past and present  
is obvious (XSLT, XQuery, JavaScript, Python, and Ruby are all good  
examples of modern day programming languages heavily rooted in Lisp and  
Scheme), and their future influence is undeniable,

Learn them now and have a *GREAT* programming job in 10 years.  XSLT,  
XQuery, JavaScript, Python, Ruby, Haskell, and Smalltalk are *ALL*  
wonderful languages that everyone should learn at least one of *REALLY*  
well.

--
/M:D

M. David Peterson
http://mdavid.name | http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/2354 |  
http://dev.aol.com/blog/3155