[XSL-LIST Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: XSL as a Programming Language
----- Original Message ----- From: Eric van der Vlist > > was wondering if people on this group also feel that xslt could replace > > traditional programming languages. > > IMHO, XSLT cannot replace a programming language in its current shape > (standard XSLT is lacking many key functions), but it can very nicely be > used together with a standard programming language using extensions to > call external functions. The question is how good are 'traditional programming languages' for some ( actually - general ) tasks. Another question is 'what is traditional programming language'? If perl could be called a 'traditional programming language' - XSLT could replace it. Perl is good for processing of text files with regular expressions ( But there are text files which are good for perl and which are bad for prel). XSLT is good for processing XML files with XPath 'regular expressions'. Perl is almost useless without the extensions written in C. XSLT is almost useless without the extensions written in java. The biggest problem of XSLT is verbosity ( using 5 lines of code to write foo( bar) is almost crazy for any language, because programming is about functions), but this is solvable. Actually 'missing else' and 'updateable variables' is also solvable. Semantics of XSLT constructions is powerful enough + XSLT has one serious advantage comparing to other 'traditional' languages - it is a first nice mix of dataflow with processing code. Maybe there are / were better attempts - I don't know. Rgds.Paul. PS. I think there is at least 2 projects trying to use XSLT for server side scripting, not only for rendering of one XML file into one HTML page. ( Rmdms and Ux ). Also there is ( at the moment ;-) at least 2 interesting variations around XSLT. ( Resin and AxKit ). Rmdms http://rmdms.sourceforge.com Ux. http://www.pault.com/Ux/ Resin http://www.caucho.com/ AxKit http://www.axkit.com XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
|
PURCHASE STYLUS STUDIO ONLINE TODAY!Purchasing Stylus Studio from our online shop is Easy, Secure and Value Priced! Download The World's Best XML IDE!Accelerate XML development with our award-winning XML IDE - Download a free trial today! Subscribe in XML format
|