“unmanageably monstrous stylesheets” lol
Too true…
From: Ihe Onwuka ihe(_dot_)onwuka(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com
[mailto:xsl-list-service(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com]
Sent: Friday, November 07, 2014 1:16 PM
To: xsl-list
Subject: Re: [xsl] What PC Windows editor are People using for XSL stylesheet
coding
My elders and betters will correct me if I am wrong but the gold standard for
an xml editor seems to be oxygen.
Let me out myself as a heretic here on the grounds that my personal bias tend
towards minimalism but I do have what I think is an objective observation to
make because even if I were a paid up believer that IDE's are all good I have
(on multiple occasions) observed a double edged sword.
Editors that have debugger's (i.e not just oxygen) enable people who are asked
to write XSLT despite not being familiar with the language (the intersection of
those sets is very large) to create unmanageably monstrous stylesheets whose
maintenance and update is totally reliant on the availability of the debugger.
Whether that is a cuss or comp is for the reader to decide but since this is my
post I will eschew any such diffidence.
Now I understand such is not necessarily the exclusive preserve of XSLT but
given that we are talking about a non-sequential declarative language the word
that first sprung to my mind in relation to this state of affairs was insidious.
I don't know the half of the capabilities of the tool, I am sure there are good
reasons why it is the gold standard and in fact this observation is not about
oxygen specifically. But what I am saying is that without debugging facilities
these stylesheet monstrosities could never be created and (one would like to
think) their creators may weel be be forced into better software engineering
practices.
I'm not even going to try and weigh that against the good things these tools
are said to facilitate but I think it is an observation worth making.
Call it an unintended consequence of the technology.
On Fri, Nov 7, 2014 at 5:39 PM, Catherine Wilbur
cwilbur(_at_)uwindsor(_dot_)ca<mailto:cwilbur(_at_)uwindsor(_dot_)ca>
<xsl-list-service(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com<mailto:xsl-list-service(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com>>
wrote:
What PC WIndows editor are people using for their XSL stylesheet coding?
I am currently using editx - xmleditor (freeware version)
Are there some better ones out there that we could be using?
_____________________________________________________________________
Catherine Wilbur
cwilbur(_at_)uwindsor(_dot_)ca<mailto:cwilbur(_at_)uwindsor(_dot_)ca>
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