[PotatoEngineer]

The mostly-just-one-way-to-organize-it approach cannot be overstated here. XPath is neat, but iterating through parser results is still a pain.

[SigmundA]

That because XML does not map well to Simula style OO.

"Iterating" XML in XSLT (a language designed to manipulate XML) is way less of a pain.

[j_baker]

I don't disagree with this, but I think there's something wrong when need another markup language to deal with the first markup language.

[SigmundA]

XSLT is XML, that whats nice about it, you can reflect on it.

XML has no operators for manipulating or evaluating, it is a metalanguage. XSLT adds this on top of XML to process XML.

[st0p]

You've got to be kidding. I see the usefulness of XSLT, but still XSLT is a synonym to pain. Definitely one of the most ugly syntaxes I've ever.

It has a place, it can be useful, but I thoroughly detest it.

[SigmundA]

Not kidding, XSLT is functional, it's very different from imperative style OO, it's not complex and can get a lot done with few lines of code.

If you think it's painful and ugly, then don't dig any deeper in computer science than javascript.