No. That myth has been decisively addressed by Erik Naggum about 12 years ago. His summary:
> They are not identical. The aspects you are willing to ignore are
> more important than the aspects you are willing to accept. Robbery
> is not just another way of making a living, rape is not just another
> way of satisfying basic human needs, torture is not just another way
> of interrogation. And XML is not just another way of writing S-exps.
> There are some things in life that you do not do if you want to be a
> moral being and feel proud of what you have accomplished.
Please read his posting/rant for the arguments. Dude. (I'll just tell you to search for "naggum xml", there are more than enough copies in circulation, and you'll find a few more postings by other people.)
Now, as for XSLT: The big problem is the hairy syntax. It is really (at least) two languages (the XML tags, and the query language that is used inside selectors). In effect, you are writing at least three languages completely intermixed in a single file: the output language (most often some XML or HTML variant), the XSLT tag language (another XML format), and the XSLT query language (an incredibly limited ad hoc micro-language inside some XML attributes).
XSLT is a very limited language, as opposed to Lisp macros, which can use the entire Lisp language.
And yes, I have used XSLT in my job, and I do have reason to think that the XSLT-stylesheets I wrote have an acceptable quality. However, I know that I could have done their job better if I could have used some structured data, an HTML formatter, and a real programming language.
> XML is just s-exprs
No. That myth has been decisively addressed by Erik Naggum about 12 years ago. His summary:
> They are not identical. The aspects you are willing to ignore are > more important than the aspects you are willing to accept. Robbery > is not just another way of making a living, rape is not just another > way of satisfying basic human needs, torture is not just another way > of interrogation. And XML is not just another way of writing S-exps. > There are some things in life that you do not do if you want to be a > moral being and feel proud of what you have accomplished.
Please read his posting/rant for the arguments. Dude. (I'll just tell you to search for "naggum xml", there are more than enough copies in circulation, and you'll find a few more postings by other people.)
Now, as for XSLT: The big problem is the hairy syntax. It is really (at least) two languages (the XML tags, and the query language that is used inside selectors). In effect, you are writing at least three languages completely intermixed in a single file: the output language (most often some XML or HTML variant), the XSLT tag language (another XML format), and the XSLT query language (an incredibly limited ad hoc micro-language inside some XML attributes).
XSLT is a very limited language, as opposed to Lisp macros, which can use the entire Lisp language.
And yes, I have used XSLT in my job, and I do have reason to think that the XSLT-stylesheets I wrote have an acceptable quality. However, I know that I could have done their job better if I could have used some structured data, an HTML formatter, and a real programming language.
Tell any lisp programmer he doesn't get first-class functions and has to use nothing but macros, and he'll run screaming in horror.
XML and XSLT are analagous to s-exprs and macros, to say they are "just" those things is willful ignorance of a whole boatload of complexity.
Good, so I'll replace the '<' in XML with '#:-D' and the '>' with '%:-/'
Or replace indenting levels with the XPath of where it belongs and make order optional
Syntax matters.
REALLY? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XSLT#Example_1_.28transforming_...
I want to enter this piece of evidence into the trial:
Comma separated string parsing XSLT: http://stackoverflow.com/a/2850181/92493
If you are using XSLT to work on anything other than XML you are doing very strange things.
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