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by JonnieCache 5691 days ago
xslt is beyond tedious, it is infuriating. There are few use cases for xslt that would not be better served with a procedural technique, eg. python and a parser.

also the whole "using xml to define a transformation on some other xml" thing is so overly meta as to induce a massive brain hemorrhage out of my nose and all over my desk.
1 comments
wmf 5691 days ago
Fortunately you can now use XPath for simple queries and XQuery beyond that.
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JonnieCache 5691 days ago
Forgot about them. Both XPath and XQuery are excellent technologies and a probably the best thing about XML in my experience with it. I highly recommend everyone concerned with XML check them out if they havent already. I never seem to see much mention of them around XML discussions.

http://www.w3schools.com/xquery/xquery_intro.asp

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elblanco 5691 days ago
> I never seem to see much mention of them around XML discussions.

Which is a shame since I've been banging my head against a particular set of problems for a while with XML, and XQuery nicely resolves that, and I think it's easier to use than SQL for the most part.

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jbarham 5691 days ago
Ironically probably the most popular application of XPath in the real world is jQuery selectors! Although I don't know whether that weakens or strengthens the case for JSON...
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