RE: XSLT vs RuleML (WAS RE: [xml-dev] Question for updating existing XML file)

Bullard, Claude L (Len) <> asks:
> 
> What is the advantage of expressing business rules in 
> XML templates and XSLT over using a language such as RuleML?

I'm not sure if RuleML could do quite what we're doing, but mostly it's
historic.  When we started out we didn't know that we where codifying
business rules in XML and XSLT.  

Probably the only reason to stick to our system is that the XSLT can be
optimized for the specific business cases.  We have a set of generic
capabilities, but we also have domain specific cases that import the
more generic logic.  For example, aliquot allocation in the sample bank:
the rules on how to manage the
refrigerator/freezer/shelf/slot/box/aliquot hierarchy and map it back to
the person/sample type/sample hierarchy essentially come down to almost
600 lines of XSLT, 100 of which are business logic and the rest of which
are mostly presentation logic (to the extent you can separate business
logic from presentation logic in such specialized domains).