There is going to be a point in the future when not knowing how to create web sites using XSL is going to be like not knowing how to create web sites using CSS. Don’t let it happen to you. Here are some resources to get the beginner started.
What is XSLT? - This intro comes from the two introductory chapters from O’Reilly’s book on the subject. It’ll ease you through a bit easier than the Wikipedia entry on XSLT.
XSLT Questions and Answers - Anything new starts with a few more questions. This site does a great job of addressing about 99% of them.
XSL Concepts and Practical Use - Very easy to follow presentation for those that need to have the idea of XSL sold to them quick.
TopXML - Learn XSL & XPath Tutorial - This web site is over the top on XML resources, tutorials and downloadable guides.
Macromedia’s XSL Overview - In addition to being a guide, Marius Zaharia covers how one of the most popular web development tools aid in the creation of XSL.
oXygen XML Editor & XSLT Debugger - For those who need a different tool specialized in the task. oXygen looks both powerful and sharp. Check it out for 30-days for free.
XMLPitstop - And for those of you who perfer to copy/paste/hack, this site is one of the largest source of XML examples on the web.
Let’s not forget the ever-so-useful “TestXSLT”:http://www.entropy.ch/software/macosx/#testxslt. As always, thanks for the writeup!
Has anyone written a sane shortcut language yet for XSLT? As in textile/markup sorta thing. It almost seems like this is an attempt to raise the bar so web developers can keep their jobs ;-)
Seriously though, I see the point, but they surely created something only standards writers and fellow-travelers (and eventually, tools/IDE developers) could love. If HTML had started out like this there’d probably still be no WWW as we now know it.
Great! I think XSLT is a very powerful language, I don’t really understand why so few people are using it. It’s a little verbose, but there’s a LOT you can do with it, and performance is pretty good.
I wrote a little bit of evangelism once:
http://www.manuzhai.nl/weblog/comments/the-power-of-xslt/
Just when I start to get comfortably complacent in my obsolescence, you have to go and say something like this…
“There is going to be a point in the future when not knowing how to create web sites using XSL is going to be like not knowing how to create web sites using CSS. Don’t let it happen to you.”
Fine then, I’ll read your links, and learn XSLT so I won’t go the way of the tag. :)
Oops, that was meant to read “So I won’t go the way of the font tag.” Indeed, it is dead.
I downloaded oXygen for my iBook last week. It’s a really slick tool. I’m looking at XML totally differently now. It certainly beats a plain old text editor.
You guys are the best! These lists you make are extremely helpful keep on making them :)
I don’t know that it’ll ever be as universal as CSS, because most people are going to want to stick to their favorite scripting languages to create UI’s. BUT, XSLT is a good choice when you have data to be displayed that fits well within a dom, and is well-formed and described. It’s also a good choice when your development resources are limited. It makes dividing the labor up between backend and frontend folks easier. All you have to do to get started is agree on the structure of the XML to be transformed and they can both go off and build to that structure.
It’s also a handy thing to have in your RSS feeds to help folks who may not know what they are (see any Feedburner feed or http://lawver.net/kevin.xml for an example).
Honestly, learning XSLT was the most eye-opening and useful thing I learned in 4 years of college. I can’t wait to use it again on a project since it’s been awhile.
A few years back I put together a sample website done all in XML/XSLT for a grad class I took, check it out: bmwXML
The background is a little goofed in Safari, but it works great in the other browsers.
Mike, that’s nice. I went through the same thing when I sat down and actually started building designs with XSLT. If you’re a designer and you’re paired with a decent developer that’s also aware of XSL, you’ll see development speeds increase dramatically. It’s nice to be able to separate completely what I do in a CSS wireframe from what a the programmer does with the client and server side scripting.
Useful set of links, thanks.
Another interesting article here that demonstrates a ways of seperating presentaion from data.
http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2000/07/26/xslt/xsltstyle.html
notice that it’s over 5 years old!