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>Again, I don't think we as language designers
can solve that problem now, we
>have to rely on the
educators.
A lot of people try to learn XSLT by downloading
one of the free XSLT processors and playing with some examples. There is nothing
wrong with doing that, except that if you really want to do serious work with
XSLT, you need to go back to the fundamentals. That means you need to understand
the abstractions underlying the language. Abstraction is at the core of
computing.
In that regard, I belive the XML Infoset is a very
important spec for any one who is new to the XML world. For XSLT, newcomers need
to do the following:
1. Understand the problems with procedural
programming
2. Understand what is functional
programming
3. Understand why functional programming is good
for XSLT (or rather good for what XSLT is designed to do)
4. "Unlearn" procedural programming techniques
while learning XSLT syntax
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