[sbennettmcleish]

Agree 100%. I've been using XSLT very extensively in my current role for at least two years now and I love it!

However, I can say with certainty that I'm the only one within my team that shares this view.

Using it for transformation of XML to HTML, semantic validation (does my XML contain A and B when C='Individual'?) and mapping from one XML flavour to something JAXB friendly. Implementing much of this stuff in Java or other would be a nightmare and/or unproductive process with a LOT more code required.

[jimfuller2014]

yes, its a typical scenario ... XSLT is one of those languages where people either love it or hate it ... I think its to do with the fact that it takes a bit longer to become productive or useful in XSLT, most developers are expected to just immediately start writing code that 'does stuff' these days.

Anyhow, I see most of developers pain with XSLT is because they never learned the basics of the language and thrash about ... perhaps thats the biggest fault of the language, in that its difficult to tell its story with an analogy to where people start from. Anyhow, learning any fp language tends to improve a developer as a programmer