... > -----Original Message----- > From: Geoff Howard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Saturday, April 05, 2003 10:37 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: RE: [RT] the quest for the perfect template language
<snip/> > Not trying to be cynical, just pointing out that it's not just > making a good > technology that's needed - it's making one that matters. > > Geoff OK, I'm regretting sending that message - the tone is wrong and I missed the point. Stefano was talking about a revolutionary idea and I just said "hey, you're talking about a revolutionary idea". He was asking why people weren't jumping in on it and I wanted to explain why I wasn't and I think air a below the surface concern I had, which is just that reinventing the wheel is an "anti-pattern" - but then again so is continuing to drive on a flat tire. I'm not bothered much by the xml syntax and I still think some of the points from my last message apply but I definitely resonate with the other core problems. How many of these problems would be solved by some combination of: - Preprocessing xml to provide a structure more conducive to the type of rule based processing that xslt excels at (like providing count and position information). I wriggled my way out of several tricky xsl programming issues by simply providing more information coming out of the generator. - Creating a flexible, reusable library of xsl template rules to perform the most common but non-trivial tasks. Along these lines, I have been needing a good crossbrowser dhtml menu implemented with xslt and have found nothing, though there are many javascript-only solutions. I'd much rather have the heavy lifting of creating the menu structure performed (and cached) serverside but it's just so easy to plug in the javascript only version. Geoff
