Comment by kgwxd
5 months ago
XML, and other X[x] standards, are just horrible to read. On top of that, XML was made 10x worse by wrapping things in SOAP and the like over the wire, back in the day.
XSD, XPath, XSLT are all domains where I'd argue that reading/reasoning about are way more important.
When troubleshooting an issue, I don't mind scanning XML for a few data points so I can confirm what values are being communicated, but when I need to figure out how/why a specific value came to be, I don't want the logic spread throughout a giant text file wrapped in attribute value strings, and other non-debuggable "code". I'd rather it just be in a proper programming language.
The specifications are certainly not easy to read, and I wouldn't recommend them to learn about XML. But from the perspective of someone implementing them they are quite useful!
As someone who has used many programming languages and who went through the process of implementing this one I have many opinions about XPath and XSLT as programming languages. I myself am more interested in implementing them for others who value using them than using them myself. I do recognize there is a sizeable community of people who do use these tools and are passionate about them - and that's interesting to see and more power to them!