RE: LINQ to XML versus XSLT

> From: Scott Trenda [mailto:Scott.Trenda@xxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Friday, June 27, 2008 3:23 PM
> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: RE:  LINQ to XML versus XSLT
>
> Like I said, the proprietary preprocessor we use at my work is
> tag-based, and is quite pleasant for working with XSLT, HTML and other
> tag-based input and output. We've been using it less and less for raw
> string-based HTML generation, and more for a "glue" of sorts to
> coordinate the other technologies that do the brunt of the hard work.

I'm sure your proprietary preprocessor is great for your organization's needs.
However, you organization has to support that preprocessor by assigning
development resources for enhancements, maintenance and internal documentation
for your application development staff.  If you were using an off the shelf
XSLT 2.0 or XQuery processor, you would have a standard way to generate your
Web applications.  You *may* have to write a few extension functions to
support your organizations infrastructure, but supporting several thousand
lines of code is much better than supporting several million lines of code.
[exact numbers unknown for your situation, but the point being you are writing
and maintaining less code for your organization]

> The point I'm trying to convey here is that rather than trying to
> shoehorn everything into XSLT 2.0 through the vendor's extension
> functions may not be the best way to go for most webserver tasks.

Err... there not vendor extensions, the extension mechanism is built into the
specification.

> If a
> group like the W3C were to finally tackle this issue with the goal of
> producing an XML-based language to handle these tasks (while leveraging
> against the strengths of the other XML technologies), then we may
> finally be able to escape PHP and other awkward preprocessors.

You don't need the W3C to define anything since you can do it today with the
existing technologies by combining XML, XSL, XQuery, HTTP, URI, etc.  If you
need to do pipeline type stuff you can use something like Apache Synapse.


Andy.