I both agree and disagree with you. The trouble is that XSLT syntax is
horrific and some of the specs (for a specific example the XInclude
spec) are bent on violating SoC more than embedding if statements ever
could (having to declare a base url is a greater evil).
There is a "production concern" that I keep hearing over and over about
how to let the art-crowd work on the HTML. And I think a better XML
solution combined with better tools could solve that. Unfortunately it
is unlikely that these will be developed in a recession, and while I
have some ideas on how this would be done, I hate GUI programming.
The trick is to divide your stylesheet out to include content from an
XHTML template with marker nodes which are basically ignored by the
WYSIWIG editor (btw I'm not arguing that such tools are good...I've yet
to find one that doesn't produce crap code). The WYSIWIG edits this
"template" which is included by the stylesheet. Your data passes
through the stylesheet, the template has nodes included, and your "web
designer" doesn't have to learn HTML (ha ha).
The other challenge is that HTML just sucks totally... (I figure while
I'm slaughtering the sacred cows I might as well get out the Gatling gun
and kill the lead cow of them all).. However...I think we're stuck with
it for quite some time.
The anti-pattern to this is that it takes forever to get an XSLT page
right... Don't get me wrong... I like XSLT and I think is the "right"
solution (minus its crappy syntax), but its a forethought versus an
afterthought technology. Meaning you pay up front. Business hates
this, they'd rather think only about the present, get it out
quickly...then pay all along over and over again. (The logic defies me
but I hold this truth to be self-evident).
The other anti-pattern is that XML is a hodgepodge of X* stuff and JAX*
stuff. No cohesive architecture to any of the various X*/JAX* stuff.
And working with others in XML stuff is awful! "I like and want to use
SAX, no I like JDOM, but I want to pass you JDOM objects...but I need
DOM objects..." (and don't even get me started on XML jar version hell).
What JSP/Struts and Velocity/and friends give you is a bit more of a
cohesive architecture. What they don't give you is an elegant way to
separate concerns. Possibly Avalon does this (to some degree) but it
only covers a subset of what you need and furthermore it goes out of its
way to define far to many "is a" relationships just to avoid having
"default" implementations (public void init() {/*empty designated by
interface}). The cost is often a design with too many
SameThingAsBOnlyIsAlsoComposableButNotConfigrable type classes... plus
long inheritance trees to aggregate them all together.. And at the
end...you still don't have a way to stick stuff in your HTML or stick
HTML around your stuff.
So putting out crap code that you have to toggle and mess with over and
over again is where the money is at in web app development. So what is
the solution? There isn't one...web app development is still a big
hairy mess. Choice is good. ;-)
-Andy
On Tue, 2002-10-08 at 04:04, Pier Fumagalli wrote:
> On 8/10/02 1:30 am, "Jon Scott Stevens" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > on 2002/10/7 5:21 PM, "Pier Fumagalli" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> >> JSPs are the "root of all evil" because HTMLers think to have the power (and
> >> obligation, after a while) to blatantly destroy your entire container in
> >> less than 2 minutes of uptime... To that respect, even ASP are better...
> >
> > It is so nice to hear you say that finally Pier. =)
>
> I still think that the optimal solution is a true SOC using XML, but the
> world is too stupid to understand that... All everyone wants is a quick and
> dirty solution...
>
> Pier
>
>
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