The second question (if XSLT can be used for generic algorithms) has a dual
answer. You can not use XSLT for anything useful without having a source
document - so the short answer is no, it is always specific to the document
at hand. However, that does not mean you can not write XSL in a "modular"
fashion, you can include a "generic" piece of XSL and you can also write
"re-useable" named templates.
This is generally the case but not a requirement. You can have an xslt file
that references itself. It is also not necessary that the contents be read.
for an example look at.
http://www.informatik.hu-berlin.de/~obecker/XSLT/#eratosthenes
if you add to
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="eratosthenes.xslt"?>
the start of the file you just have to load it to calculate the primes.
Edward Middleton
XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list