RE: XSLT vs Perl

I always found these ' The Green Lantern can beat up you Dad; type
arguments difficult to answer.....

The problem with generally useful languages like PERL and XSLT is that
as programmers we are obsessed with genericity and reuse...the fact is
that a highly proprietary language customized for a specific task is the
perfect language when solving a specific problem. 

Both langs were designed for a specific purpose and then abused, is the
success of a language based on how generically applicable it
is...personally I would argue the opposite.

I remember when people argued that PERL should never be used in solving
X problem.....the forces that make people program are more marketing and
commercial then all of us will admit.

the benefits of XSLT;

- deals with UNICODE char encoding
- its xml
- there are benefits to having both the programming language and data in
a hierarchical data model
- functional compisition has many benefits
- less side effects is a good thing
- lets not kid anyone, PERL is synatically dense, and difficult to
comprehend. In comparison XLST is facile

I could go on, though perhaps your energies would be better focused from
devils advocate to reviewing the XSLT 2.0 spec which ends last call Feb
15th.

Cheers, Jim Fuller



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