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Re: [xsl] XSLT model not "natural"? [was Re: [ANN] FreeMarker 2.3 as an alternative to XSLT]


Subject: Re: [xsl] XSLT model not "natural"? [was Re: [ANN] FreeMarker 2.3 as an alternative to XSLT]
From: Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2003 15:41:27 -0400

Jonathan,

First off, let me state I am glad to see your product and your advocacy of it. My challenging of its implicit assumption that XSLT is difficult was not meant so much as a challenge of the product or its approach, so much as of the reigning dogma that says XSLT is difficult.

At 05:11 AM 6/27/2003, you wrote:
That's fine. It suits my purposes for there to be dialogue on this. I have not responded earlier simply because I was too busy moving house.

Cool.


First of all, you surely understand that my announcement was advocacy material and I made my biases quite clear for the reader.

Absolutely.


Well, I can't help but make the casual comment that professors and graduate students, i.e. academics, are much more intellectually oriented than the general population, and I would say, more likely to be open to stretching their minds than the average person.

That's a good point: I hadn't thought of it. On the other hand, I've met many smart and intellectually engaged people outside academia too -- and not a few narrow-minded academics. Though the latter, not in an XSLT course, I concede. :->


I would guess that you are a talented teacher and trainer and are good at conveying the core concepts to people. However, the fact that you can make a living teaching XSLT already suggests that it is not that easy!

Heh: maybe so. Yet I don't make my living teaching the stuff, exclusively. I also use it, and I do lots of non-XSLT work. This doesn't completely invalidate your point, I know; in fact much of the problem with training in high-tech is that so few trainers are also practitioners. The prevalence of poor or mediocre training that makes XSLT seem more complex than it is contributes to its reputation, I believe.


The programming model embodied by XSLT is perfectly "natural" when it's understood for what it is, and not confused with some other model.

The above argument is not very convincing to me. That something is natural once you understand it is surely true of any conceptually challenging thing....

Quite so. The scare quotes were intended to send up a flag that the concept of "natural" might itself be a little misplaced here. There's not much natural about any of this stuff, is there? Is Perl more natural than Python? (If so, is "natural" so good? ;-)


take the time to come to grips with what's different

If you have to take the time to "come to grips" with something, then it doesn't "come naturally".

Mm, maybe -- but let's not let the debate slide into a rathole about what it means to be natural. Rather, I'd like to focus on the "difficulty" created by XSLT's not being well-suited (not being "naturally fit" :-) for uptake by people who are so crunched for time that they can't afford to learn and practice with their toolkit before they have to use it. Ironically, this may mean that a little time up front can make Barbara an XSLT "expert", writing strong and effective code, while Bob, who is no less intelligent and experienced, struggles with it indefinitely, becoming convinced that XSLT is hard.


Maybe this is all to say that XSLT isn't *inherently* hard or easy at all: rather, how easily you come to it depends on other factors besides the concepts of the language itself.

I have witnessed more than one "non-programmer" jump out of their chairs with excitement on discovering how "easy" XSLT is....

That somebody is discovering how easy XSLT is means that they had a preconceived idea that XSLT was quite difficult. IOW, I sense a tacit admission of the fact that XSLT has a reputation for being difficult.

Oh yes, I admit that -- I claim also that its reputation for being difficult is undeserved, and that its actual difficulty (for those who find it difficult) is due to factors extraneous to the language itself.


I don't admit, however, that all the surprise is due to discovering it's easy in the face of preconceptions. Sometimes these are people who think *any* kind of "programming" is hard.

This leads to the question of why XSLT has such a reputation. How did it get such a "bum rap"? OTOH, such preconceived ideas, even obnoxious stereotypes, typically have at least some basis in the truth. If XSLT has a reputation for being difficult, I doubt that this is just a calumny invented out of whole cloth.

I agree: there are reasons. One reason could be that people who consider themselves smart have trouble with it, and aren't used to thinking "hey, maybe I'm going about this the wrong way" but are rather more willing to blame the language. They are then confirmed in this belief by others (such as those of us in the business of being "XSLT experts") who have an interest in fostering it, for whatever reason having nothing to do with the actual case.


My belief is that there could well be interest in an easier alternative to XSLT -- an alternative that is at least easier for the subset (however small or large) of people who find XSLT difficult. (You do yourself recognize the existence of this subset of people.)

Absolutely. Not only that, but I believe that there's room for more than one tool in the box, and that XSLT can and is complimentary with other technologies.


It shouldn't be necessary always to pose problems as either/or. Rather, let's see more innovation.

If I were in an IT department or company that hired various web page design types, and we needed technology for transforming XML, I have to say that I would guffaw at the idea of trying to train typical web design people to use XSLT. I would suspect that there are very mixed experiences out there in this regard. An alternative that could be easier for people to learn might well be attractive to people.

Perhaps: but you might also find it is as easy to oversell something else as it has been to oversell XSLT -- and for similar reasons. For example, its being broadly applied to solve problems outside its original scope -- in this way, XSLT has been a victim of its own success. People had so much need for a powerful general-purpose transformation language, that they (we) have pulled into service a tool designed for "down-translations", not really general-purpose at all.


In any case, thanks for sticking up for yourself (we both get a chance to be clearer); and good luck with FreeMarker.

Cheers,
Wendell


====================================================================== Wendell Piez mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Mulberry Technologies, Inc. http://www.mulberrytech.com 17 West Jefferson Street Direct Phone: 301/315-9635 Suite 207 Phone: 301/315-9631 Rockville, MD 20850 Fax: 301/315-8285 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Mulberry Technologies: A Consultancy Specializing in SGML and XML ======================================================================


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