[xsl] Re: Literal string question

[Dimitre Novatchev <dnovatchev at yahoo dot com>]

> By suggesting this, I mean to take nothing away from the considerable 
> contributions both of list members who are willing to push the edges of 
> XSLT (among whom I might myself sometimes be counted), or of those like 
> Dimitre who are demonstrating, to the great benefit of all of us, how more 
> generalized approaches to programming can wrestle the language into 
> tractability for tasks for which it was not originally designed (and for 
> which even Dimitre will concede it is less than elegant).

Wendell, 

When XSLT was designed there was not the Muenchian method or the Kaysian method or
the Wendell Piez method at all. The fact that XSLT "was not originally designed" to
provide these solutions did not stop these pioneers (you among them).

The perception of "elegance" has much to do with change of culture. What was thought
impossible and unbelievable before, becomes gradually accepted because of its
usefulness, and the notion of "elegance" changes to include the new achievements.
The constructors of the very first automobiles loved their creations and considered
them elegant, although the majority was probably regarding them as monstrousity. 

It is easy for something non-traditional to be labeled "non-elegant". A year ago
when I described the Wendell Piez method in the xsltalk list (at this time I didn't
know that this was named after you, but I liked the method and was proud to bring it
to the people), there was a reaction that this method certainly worked, but was
"ugly" compared to the usual way (recursion) of achieving repetition. Recently I
encountered messages in the microsoft groups saying that this was really cool.

The perception of elegance comes gradually through continuous use, understanding and
improvement. Try to convince someone who has never used XSLT that it is elegant --
and you'll certainly fail.

It is unacceptable to state that we should not use the language for things it was
not designed for -- even the W3C is now changing XSLT for things it was not
originally designed. How to use a language is not a religion nor do we need traffic
cops to tell us what is allowed and what not.

Cheers,
Dimitre Novatchev.

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