Re: _why_ do people use xsl:element and xsl:attribute

Deborah Aleyne Lapeyre wrote:
>         xsl:element, xsl:attribute, etc.
> We decided that they were very useful advanced features,
> but way behind, for example, Named Templates as something
> that a beginner needs to know.

At the risk of having an unpopular opinion...

I would want beginners to have a good foundation for understanding
the XSLT processing model (tree access and construction) and the
relationship between XSLT and XML Namespaces. It seems to me that
teaching people about literal result elements as "text that is
copied through" rather than as "shorthand for instructions to 
create nodes -- i.e., xsl:element, xsl:attribute, xsl:text, etc."
undermines their understanding of XSLT's most important concepts.

I don't necessarily advocate thorough coverage of when & how to
use xsl:element and xsl:attribute, but they should at least be
mentioned in terms of their relationship to literal result
elements and the concept of result tree construction, IMHO.

   - Mike
____________________________________________________________________________
  mike j. brown, fourthought.com  |  xml/xslt: http://skew.org/xml/
  denver/boulder, colorado, usa   |  personal: http://hyperreal.org/~mike/


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