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Re: [xsl] Is letting the browser transform XML to XHTML using XSLT a good choice?


Subject: Re: [xsl] Is letting the browser transform XML to XHTML using XSLT a good choice?
From: "M. David Peterson" <xmlhacker@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 05:25:01 -0700

One other significant point: Google decided that the need for a
scriptable client side XSLT processor was great enough that it became
one of their very first contributions to their OSS efforts.  Its
written in Javascript, yes, but this, in fact, brings even more
credibilty toall of this as they made the decision that this was
important enough to get into the developers hands as quickly as
possible, that even a non-compiled language like Javascript was better
than nothing at all.

There are currently 11 OSS projects directly developed by Google.
(this doensnt include any of the Summer of Code projects they
sponsored).  They can be found here >
http://code.google.com/projects.html

Of these 11 projects, this is the only browser-based project that is
not a Google specific API.

- MS
- Mozilla (see *)
- Safari/Konqeror
- Opera
- Google

* Anybody remember these famous last words:
---
The Challenge

Anything XSL can do in the Web environment, I can do better using
technologies supported by current W3C Recommendations.

Of course, what is "meaningful" in the Web environment is open to a
variety of interpretations. Therefore, the subject of the challenge
should be one that the XSL camp and I agree is meaningful.

I am also ready to make this bet a little bit more than an academic
exercise. If I lose, I will pledge that I, and my crack mozilla
development team, will assist in implementing XSL in the mozilla open
source project.
---
> http://www.xml.com/pub/a/1999/05/xsl/xslconsidered_1.html <
---

Who won that bet, anway?

Yeah, we did.  TransforMiiX enter the world a couple of years later. 
And now there has been signicant talk of extending support for EXSLT
1.0 once it reaches final rec from the EXSLT group.

Browser and Client-side XML/XSLT has gone well beyond theory, and is
now very much a reality, and getting better each and every day.

If you care about development time/time to market, cost of
infrastructure, client-side application performance, and a cleaner,
simpler overall design, the solution is quite clear:

Client-side/Browser-based XSLT that communicates with a Server side
preferably XSLT 2.0, XSLT processor for managing transaction requests
from the client.  My choice (but I am no where near alone on this)
Saxon 8.7 and beyond -- yes, there are other 2.0 engines not developed
by Dr. Kay, and not carrying the Saxon label ... And none of them come
close to Saxon.. I promise.)

--
<M:D/>

M. David Peterson
http://www.xsltblog.com/


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