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Re: [xsl] newbie Q: is xsl going away?


Subject: Re: [xsl] newbie Q: is xsl going away?
From: Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 14:15:37 -0400

Rich,

What I wonder about is the 'hopefully' in the statement you cite:

At 11:07 AM 8/22/2003, Tommie wrote:
At 10:35 AM -0400 8/22/03, Kucera, Rich wrote:
>Vendor spokesmodels keep repeating the assertion that XSLT is hopefully
>going away.  Is this true,

Highly unlikely (at least in the next 5 years). Interest in XSLT training
is up, subscriptions to XSL-List are up, as is traffic....

Why are vendors hopeful that it'll go away, or why do they believe we would welcome its disappearance?


I realize we may be talking only of a hypothetical vendor, or of a single sore thumb. Yet the notion seems to persist in places that developers don't like XSLT. I suppose there are those who don't. Yet its use continues to spread -- this can't be only because someone is forcing us to use it against our better judgment, can it?

Maybe it's another instance of the "Billion-dollar Secret" phenomenon. Those who use XSL happily, use it happily. Those who don't, complain. Thus, we only hear complaints, even while there are more and more happy people all the time.

Rich, could you flesh this picture out a bit? Is it more than one vendor? What would account for the assumption that we can't wait to junk XSL and go back to vendor-proprietary technologies with all the costs they entail (now shown to be unnecessary)?

Or maybe it is just a vendor or two that would like us to leave behind 80/20 XSLT 1.0, with its oddities, its facility, its ease of use (once you've climbed the initial learning curve) and its relatively small footprint, in favor of a theoretically-more-consistent 99/01 technology that, before you can use it, requires you have to have two advanced degrees, deep knowledge of three other technology "standards" (including their inconsistencies), the latest hardware (with the latest OS of course), the patience of a machine, and certified training from (guess who) the vendor?

Cheers,
Wendell



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Wendell Piez                            mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Mulberry Technologies, Inc.                http://www.mulberrytech.com
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