Re: Why do some people not use XSLT to process XML-fo

Hello,

Joel's story suggests something I have seen myself. It's not so much that XSLT
is good or hard or intelligible or not, but that in general and across the
board, 'teams' seem to be made up of players who do not encroach on others'
positions and have no curiosity about what their co-workers do. And that for
whatever reason, "XSLT" has fallen on the "not-for-programmers" side of that
line at least for that one developer (who presumably picked C# somewhere along
the way as befitting the label "programming").

Be that as it may, the problem of technical debt is a real one, and the lack
of comfort with XSLT-based solutions gives XSLT itself the reputation of
technical debt to be retired. Yet at the same time I make the argument that
one of XSLT's strengths (and of XDM-based pipelines in general) is that it
makes an excellent 'scaffolding' language for quickly demonstrating
capabilities. So that's the flip side of it. Once the demonstration is in
place (admittedly there is a catch there!) retiring the XSLT means either
doing without the capability, or finding some other way to deliver it -- which
is not a problem as it was the plan all along, right? If they can honestly do
better, that puts everyone ahead, doesn't it?

So I also keep muttering that it doesn't have to be either/or. It seems the
differentiator between developers (and groups) isn't the problem-solving
ability but the openness to doing something new.

But if iXML offers as much traction as I hope, over those non-XML inputs Syd
was mentioning, we have much fine work ahead of us -- many demonstrations of
capability, if you like --

Regards, Wendell



-----Original Message-----
From: Joel Kalvesmaki director@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, November 3, 2024 3:13 PM
To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: Alan Painter alan.painter@xxxxxxxxx
<xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re:  Why do some people not use XSLT to process XML-formatted
data?

> I've found that the reason for this resistance is a combination of the
> following:

In recent conversation with a developer who was deploying some of my XSLT code
in a .NET framework, I tried to help him appreciate what global parameters
are, and how they need to be exposed to his C# applications. I showed him a
bit of source code. He was very resistant, and said, in paraphrase, "I don't
know why you're showing me this. I don't understand XSLT, and I don't need to
understand it. I am only a programmer."

That comment left me at a loss for words.

Joel
--
Joel Kalvesmaki
Director, Text Alignment Network
http://textalign.net/