RE: XSLT vs JSP

Scott Ferguson wrote:
> Here are some important differences:
>
> 1) JSP decided to leverage existing languages, like Java and
> JavaScript.  So
> the number of extra tags is small.  XSLT decided to create yet another
> programming language.   So it adds a number of new tags and significant
> complexity to the pattern language.  Also, XSLT has lost the orthogonality
> between the pattern language ('XQL') and the transformation langue
> (xsl:template, etc.)

	XQL is not the XSLT pattern language. XQL is an effort derived from XSL.
The efforts forked and will remain forked unless XQL will resync with XSLT.
Regardless this has nothing to do with orthogonality of the (still) path
based pattern and (still) XML based transformation languages. In particular
XQL need not be side-effect free and is aimed directly at database
interaction.

>
> 3) JSP produces a character stream.  XSLT products XML.  With
> JSP, there is no
> 'entity reference problem'.  You can produce HTML, TeX, PostScript, etc
> without jumping through hoops.  On the other hand, if you want
> XML/DOM output
> (as you do on the client side), you need to parse the output.

	It is a misconception that XSLT *only* produces XML output. In particular
the result-ns attribute is used to direct the XSL processor to produce other
than XML.

Jonathan Borden
http://jabr.ne.mediaone.net


 XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list