points by sheepscreek 3 days ago | 0 comments
I have good memories of using XSLT. It was a neat idea at the time.
I suppose the world has nearly moved away from XML (for browsers, not yet for folks still enjoying SOAP APIs). And as a result, XSLT has fallen into obscurity.
[–] rhdunn 3 days ago
[–] xp84 3 days ago
Don't forget the Microsoft and the competing Open Office's twin XML formats.
Basically it's like a list of everything that was clean-sheet invented like ~ 1996-2007 used XML, then over the course of about 2 years it transitioned, and almost nothing invented after 2009 or so used it. It was like the whole software industry realized what a huge mistake and pivoted to JSON, all at once.
[–] rhdunn 3 days ago
JSON is better for modelling structured data and is easier to bind to internal application structures and classes (or generic maps and arrays). That (and native support in JavaScript) is why JSON grew in popularity.
XML is better for modelling mixed content data such as documents ((X)HTML, JATS, DocBook, etc.), images (SVG), or math (MathML). That is why XML is still used in publishing, standards, etc.
[–] sheepscreek 3 days ago
I should have clarified I meant XML is no longer seriously considered for any new protocols/formats.
For XML, we can add docx/xlsx/pptx/odt/ods/odp to the list.
XSLT is still used on the server back-end for rendering publisher documents (JATS, etc.) and for things like US bills.