alt Hacker NewsXSLT/XPath have evolved since XSLT 1.0.
Features are now available like key (index) to greatly speedup the processing. Good XSLT implementation like Saxon definitively helps as well on the perf aspect.
When it comes to transform XML to something else, XSLT is quite handy by structuring the logic.
Replies
echelon • today at 1:40 PM
XSLT just needs a different, non-XML serialization.
XML (the data structure) needs a non-XML serialization.
Similar to how Semantic Web's Owl has four different serializations, only one of them being the XML serialization. (eg. Owl can be represented in Functional, Turtle, Manchester, Json, and N-triples syntaxes.)
➕ show 6 replies
thechao • today at 1:19 PM
Can you name a non-Saxon XSLT processor? I'd really like one. Preferably, open-source.
➕ show 2 replies
Keys were a thing in XSLT 1.x already.
XSLT 2+ was more about side effects.
I never really grokked later XSLT and XPath standards though.
XSLT 1.0 had a steep learning curve, but it was elegant in a way poetry is elegant because of extra restrictions imposed on it compared to prose. You really had to stretch your mind to do useful stuff with it. Anyone remembers Muenchian grouping? It was gorgeous.
Newer standards lost elegance and kept the ugly syntax.
No wonder they lost mindshare.