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Re: <quote>XSL is NOT easy</quote>

Subject: Re: <quote>XSL is NOT easy</quote>
From: "Dimitre Novatchev" <dnovatchev@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 08:51:14 -0700
Re:  <quote>XSL is NOT easy</quote>
There is an enormous amount of bad
unmaintainable code being written by self-taught amateur programmers, in all
sorts of languages, and many of them are attracted to languages like XSLT
that look easy at first sight.


Yes, and discussing that a language "is not easy" we first must define
what "easy" means.

For me XSLT 2.0 + FXSL is almost as easy as Haskell and using Haskell
must be the easiest way to do programming.

If people do not share this observation, this means that they are
missing something essential in their education -- be it the
"declarative programming mindset" or understanding of basic math --
such as sets, lists and recursion.

Some people cannot count. Should they be programmers?

There are many anecdotes from interviewers about the kind of
"knowledge" they encounter in interviews. For example, the interviewer
asks why in the small program written there are so many "if"
statements  -- "Why don't you use 'else' as well ? ".

"What is 'else' ?" the interviewee replies.


I think we have almost arrived in the time when if someone expressess uneasiness in using/understanding functional programming, they are certainly confirming their unfitness as programmers.

On the other side, it has been discussed many times why functional
programs are easier to understand, transform/optimize, prove correct
and generally maintain -- one main factor for this is the "immutable"
memory and lack of side effects.

Recently I reported to this list how easy it was to parse and convert
JSON documents into XML ones using a general LR(1) parsing framework
written entirely in XSLT 2.0.

These days I am successfully parsing (just generating a parse tree for
now) the full XPath 2.0 using exactly the same genera LR(1) parsing
framework written in XSLT 2.0.

The lexical scanner is also fully written in XSLT 2.0 (thanks to Dr.
Kay for the well documented and explained grammar and lexical rules in
his XPath 2.0 book -- I did find only a few typos, mainly related to
mixing the use of chevrons and double quotes, or to the multiple ways
to use the ">" character).

All this was *very easy and straightforward*.

So, let's continue to show, by implementing new great systems and
solutions in XSLT, that XSLT 2.0 is easier than or at least as easy to
use as other mainstream popular programming languages.


-- Cheers, Dimitre Novatchev --------------------------------------- Truly great madness cannot be achieved without significant intelligence. --------------------------------------- To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk ------------------------------------- You've achieved success in your field when you don't know whether what you're doing is work or play



On 6/25/07, Michael Kay <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> XSL is NOT easy if
> you want to code professionally in it. It IS easy to use XSL
> but not well. ....

I would agree with this entirely. But then, I think it's true of every other
programming language as well. There is an enormous amount of bad
unmaintainable code being written by self-taught amateur programmers, in all
sorts of languages, and many of them are attracted to languages like XSLT
that look easy at first sight.

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/

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