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Re: [xsl] Need some Advice

2022-02-04 12:26:50
Try to persuade them to get an external consultant in - someone who they 
respect (and who you respect) to review their XSLT coding practices. You can't 
persuade them to change yourself, they clearly don't regard you as a fount of 
knowledge even if you are - but you might persuade them that it's worth 
reviewing what they do against external best practice.

Reminds me of the battle I had in my first programming job persuading people to 
abandon GOTO statements. Fancy academic nonsense, they thought it was, this guy 
has been spoilt by too much time in college.

Michael Kay
Saxonica

On 4 Feb 2022, at 18:01, Mailing Lists Mail daktapaal(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com 
<xsl-list-service(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com> wrote:

Hello All,
I need some advice from you all. I have been working with XSLT for last 15 
years and I have now come across a contract opportunity with a financial firm 
in Australia and I am like weeks into it. I was told that the clients are 
bound with XSLT1.0 and XSLT 2.0 does not work. I was wondering why it does 
not work. I asked if they used MS parser etc. and nothing of that sort is 
happening. When I looked into the code i figured why xslt2.0 wont work. it 
wont because of the wrong coding. xml elements are coded as text using &lt; 
and &gt; and the text  is not in the xsl:text and  xpaths are  all 
unbelievable . No one with even 1 year of exp with xslt will even fathom such 
xpaths. there are circular xpaths, no keys .. no variables. using the same 
complicated xpaths over and over again in consecutive lines of code. and its 
all a mess. Super mess and it makes me cry.  So messed up that you can not 
format the code because you will break the spacing in the text nodes..The 
reasoning.? The one who did the initial work was a contractor who did not 
know Xslt.

part 2 of the story..
I started coding and I have a muscle memory of doing the things in a certain 
way ( hopefully the right way ).. I was pulled in into a meeting saying that 
my code is messed up and that I am doing things the way that is against the 
coding standards practice of company .. every line of the code was changed to 
how they do it/// . keys removed, xsl:text removed, and every nightmare i 
imagine was asked to make and by me. I checked in the code now they way they 
do, knowing very well that it is messy.. 

I am pulled everyday and told that my XSLT coding is not correct. I have 
always stood as the XSLT conscience and people have learnt from me. Not 
blowing trumpets of myself, but the current situation is very basic very very 
basic. I did not do these mistakes on my first job with no experience.

What do I do?? 
1.Resign and let them be as they want to ?
2. continue and do the coding the way they want and hopefully I will get used 
to it in a couple of months and I suffer until then

My heart breaks here to see the attitude that someone is holding my hand to 
make me do bad things..... The attitude is clear. "you shall do as we say". 
You can chuck your XSLT coding practices..

Makes me remember a contractor who came home to cut trees. I asked him to do 
it a certain way and he said he wouldn't do it even if I gave him 2000 GBP.

Please advice.
Dr. Tapaal Dakota
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