Is XSLT worth it? [closed]

Answer 1

I use XSLT (for lack of better alternative), but not for presentation, just for transformation:

1. I write short XSLT transformations to do mass edits on our maven pom.xml files.

2. I've written a pipeline of transformations to generate XML Schemas from XMI (UML Diagram). It worked for a while, but it finally got too complex and we had to take it out behind the barn.

3. I've used transformations to refactor XML Schemas.

4. I've worked around some limitations in XSLT by using it to generate an XSLT to do the real work. (Ever tried to write an XSLT that produces an output using namespaces that aren't known until runtime?)

I keep coming back to it because it does a better job round-tripping the XML it's processing than other approaches I've tried, which have seemed needlessly lossy or simply misunderstand XML. XSLT is unpleasant, but I find using Oxygen makes it bearable.

That said, I'm investigating using Clojure (a lisp) to perform transformations of XML, but I haven't gotten far enough yet to know if that approach will bring me benefits.