[ndriscoll]

Right, unless you run a javascript xslt processor, you can't do things after page load. There's at least one javascript implementation that lets you do data binding to do dynamic page updates, but I'm not familiar with it.

The main advantage for simple things is that you don't need an application server or compiler. It's all static files, and it's all built right into the browser so easy to get started with. For less simple things, it should be easier to cache since you can separate out user data and have the bulk of the information you send be the static template (which the user can cache).

I suppose maybe that last point is why people use javascript frameworks for static pages (so they can send a static, cached js file and then small payloads for user data), which seems like overkill to me.

It would be nice if browsers supported streaming xml. Of course streaming xml exists (e.g. XMPP). It's not really any different than json: the spec said you need to have a single root object, and then someone wrote a spec that says you don't need to do that.

[kroltan]

Ok, thanks, then I'm not missing something obvious, heh.

You make a good point of caching the XSLT file itself though, I hadn't considered that. Simple server outputs XML data, browser renders into a page.