Re: [xsl] Rescuing XSLT from Niche Status

["Jacobs,David B." <djacobs at mitre dot org>]

> This is just what some people call the "pull" method.
> In fact XSLT has a mechanism which is specifically there to make it act
> more like the ASP type of templating language that you mention.

Agreed, this is just the pull method, but all too often I see this method
being dissed in favor of the more powerful push.  While this makes sense for
those who are already experts in XSLT and pushing the envelope, I believe it
is detrimental to have most people's initial exposure to XSLT be push
formulated stylesheets.  My main issue is that of advocacy and how to help
XSLT achieve mass popularity on the order of PHP, ASP and other favored web
application tools.

> Having simplified your stylesheet down to to a single match="/"
> template into which you "pull" the data, you can go the next step and
> miss out the surrounding xsl:stylesheet and xsl:template elements
> and just start off with (typically) the html element.
> You just need to have an xsl:version attribute in the xsl namespace.

Thanks for the information on the abrieviated syntax, I was not aware you
could do that.  However, I would likely recommend keeping the xsl:stylesheet
because it makes it easier for the user to experiment with XSLT's more
powerful features.  I want users to be encouraged to experiment with XSLT's
other features while not requiring them to do so.

David


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