RE: [xml-dev] XML support in browsers?

["Michael Kay" <mike@saxonica.com>]

> The funny (and frankly sad) thing to me is that the XSLT 
> community often still expresses, as above, that the problem 
> is that their technology just isn't appreciated enough by 
> shallow resentful folks who just want to cut and paste.
> 
> Like that'll help.  It sure didn't help before.

I don't see it as funny, but I agree it is a little sad. Nevertheless, it is
true. There's a paradigm shift involved in mastering XSLT for doing anything
non-trivial, and a lot of programmers will never gain the benefits of the
technology because they aren't prepared to retrain themselves. 

On the other hand, if you think this means we should restrict ourselves to
designing languages in the idiom of the 1960s in order to cater for people
who don't want to learn new skills, then I think that's even sadder. There's
a large enough community of happy and productive users to prove that the
exercise was worthwhile; it doesn't bother me too much if they only comprise
10% of the total. My measure of success is not the percentage of programmers
using the technology, but the efficiency and effectiveness of those that do.


Regards,

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