xml-dev - RE: First experiences with XSL

[David Schach <davidsch@microsoft.com>]

> I've downloaded MSXSL and used it to generate HTML for a couple of
> document
> types, successfully but with a certain amount of frustration caused by (a)
> lack of diagnostics when I got things wrong, 
> 
	Agreed.  The diagnostics need to be improved.  Remember this is a
prototype.  The best way to debug right now is to use the command line tool,
msxsl.exe, and use the println function.

> and (b) limited functionality.
> 
	Agreed.  The functionality needs to be improved. msxsl doesn't
implement the full XSL specification (which is far from being complete or
final).

> I've now implemented the same thing without XSL: I wrote an MSXML
> application in Java that does a recursive walk down the document tree and
> calls a registered "handler" class to process each element type. I added a
> number of helper methods such as isFirstOfType() to allow the handlers to
> get information about their context more easily.
> 
	Agreed.  You've essentially reinvented and reimplemented an
alternative XSL.  The purpose of XSL is to be a declarative XML based syntax
that is easy to use.  Writing JAVA code doesn't meet these requirements.



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