XSLT good choice for web framework?

Question

I've always thought of XML (and SGML before that) data as the devil's format. I'm of the old database and flat files school. Nonetheless, we are developing a commercially-available web product who's framework is based off of translating/transforming XML data in chains.

As we're interviewing for positions as well talking to potential customers, they love the concept of what it will do but are weary of supporting XSLT long-term. One person even called it the proverbial "dead." Dead like COBOL, Unix, and C or dead like Apple Business BASIC?

Anyway, I'm curious if building a web framework on XSLT is really not cutting edge enough (oddly) for companies. Are there inherent XSLT implementation problems that make this venture something worth reconsidering?

Answer 1

The popularity of existing XSLT-based Web Content Management Systems such as Umbraco and Symphony (SharePoint's already had a mention here) provides good evidence on the suitability of XSLT for a web framework.

If anything, XSLT is on the up. Its good to see established XML solutions companies still adopting it in numbers, for example, MarkLogic added XSLT capabilities to their XML database product some time ago.

The W3C XSLT-3.0 Recommendation was published in June 2017, showing continued interest and investment in XSLT's future.

There are also some useful new open standard extensions for XSLT (and XQuery) such as the EXPath project whose function libraries include extensive HTTP and Zip features.

[Update] With the launch of Saxon-CE (now open source), XSLT 2.0 processing can now be done both server-side and client-side. It also potentially gives 2.0 capabilities to frameworks previously limited to XSLT 1.0.

Language extensions in Saxon-CE mean XSLT templates can now be bound to user-events using simple XPaths and 'event modes', there's also much better JavaScript interoperability when needed.

Answer 2

Interesting that SharePoint 2010 has fully empraced XSLT. XSLT has legs...fear not.