[FrobeniusTwist]

I hear you, but if your assessment is based on XSLT 1.0 (which is likely, since 2.0 was not very widely implemented) you might reconsider. The differences between 1.0 and 2.0 are so stark and significant that they're hardly comparable. They both use the same syntax (XML-based, which is an understandable turn-off), and the processing model is essentially the same, but the inclusion of a real type system in XPath/XSLT 2.0, and some badly-needed features that needed to be kludged in 1.0 (for-each-group being the most conspicuous, IMO) makes a real difference. I think it's a shame that the very real limitations of XSLT 1.0 continue to be imputed to 2.0 (and the impending version 3.0), since, if you're working with XML at all (which maybe you shouldn't be, but that's another issue), XSLT is a great example of Alan Kay's requirement that "simple things should be simple, and complex things should be possible."

[JadeNB]

> I hear you, but if your assessment is based on XSLT 1.0 (which is likely, since 2.0 was not very widely implemented) you might reconsider.

Are there now any free, portable XSLT 2.0-compatible processors (ideally, that match xsltproc in ease of use)? Surely no-one is comforted by "this version fixes the problems of the previous one, but you can't use it"!

EDIT: OK, Saxon (I won't link to it because I've always felt a little skeeved out by their "let's make people pay for schema awareness" business model, however legitimate it is)—it's even available through MacPorts. I don't know if I just never knew about that, or if the XSLT 2.0 support wasn't always free.

[jimfuller2014]

here here,

XSLT v1.0 is severely limited and many of the idiosyncratic behaviour ppl associate with XSLT in general is because they hit some very hard to parse/understand/grok things in XSLT v1.0

I remember in 2001-2002 sending the following link, when anyone said 'I am having a problem with XSLT transform'

http://www.exslt.org/exsl/functions/node-set/

[techdragon]

Thank you for summing it up so well. I was going to write about 2.0 but you've nicely summed it up with the Alan Kay quote.

[bryanrasmussen]

it's obvious the post is focused on 1.0, the inclusion of the type system in 2.0 really increases the number of sins that can be committed.