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Re: [xsl] Need some Advice

2022-02-05 00:57:25
Dimitre. You raised very valid points. They did not hire me to make
xslt2.0 work. they do not want xslt2.0 at all. the point that XSLT 2.0
wont work here is absolutely because the code is not even XSLT1.0
compliant. The resistance is partly political and partly because the
code is in production and there are no test cases that anyone can run
as regression. It's a million dollar financial services business in
the hands of a few developers that have no clue how to code. So there
is a fear that something may break and no one knows why!


On Fri, Feb 4, 2022 at 5:39 PM Dimitre Novatchev dnovatchev(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com
<xsl-list-service(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com> wrote:

the clients are bound with XSLT1.0 and XSLT 2.0 does not work.

If they hired you to "make XSLT 2.0 work", then they should give you time and 
space to do this, otherwise this whole job is pointless. Certainly, if they 
are actively undermining your effort, this raises red lights.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that 99% of the existing XSLT 1.0 
transformations continue to work as intended under XSLT 2.0. So, if they have 
problems with this, the reason is probably that their "XSLT 1.0" code is not 
even XSLT 1.0 - compliant.XSLT 2.0 was designed to support backwards 
compatibility with XSLT 1.0, and there are just minor exceptions of this 
rules where new features may break compatibility.

If this whole contract hiring was just a gesture and a political maneuver to 
convince someone that "this cannot be done", this stinks of politics from 
miles, and based on my own experience I know that politics is the worst 
interference that a developer may be hurt with -- so they simply don't 
deserve to have a normal, thinking person clean their  crap.

I have lived in Australia in the past and doubt that there is only a single 
company that may need a knowledgeable XSLT developer. Also, due to Covid most 
companies have realized the benefits of remote work, so distances such as 
thousands of kilometers/miles are no longer an obstacle for hiring.

A possible compromise that would also be a face-saving one, is reaching 
agreement for a complete rewrite of their crap (sorry, ver. 1 code :) ). In 
many similar cases a complete rewrite from scratch would be much faster and 
painless than the nearly impossible task of turning junk into something 
useful.

Cheers,
Dimitre

On Fri, Feb 4, 2022 at 10:01 AM 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.? T!
 he 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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--
Cheers,
Dimitre Novatchev
---------------------------------------
Truly great madness cannot be achieved without significant intelligence.
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To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk
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Never fight an inanimate object
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To avoid situations in which you might make mistakes may be the
biggest mistake of all
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Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.
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You've achieved success in your field when you don't know whether what you're 
doing is work or play
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To achieve the impossible dream, try going to sleep.
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Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
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Typing monkeys will write all Shakespeare's works in 200yrs.Will they write 
all patents, too? :)
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Sanity is madness put to good use.
-------------------------------------
I finally figured out the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it.

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