Is there a better way to format data uniformly than to store data as an XML in a data base, and asynchronously retrieve it with an XSL document to format and display it using ajax requests?
I haven’t really had a need to use XSL for a while now, and recently I was working on a project where I thought that it would be useful. I went looking for an Aptana Studio plug-in that might let me cheat by giving me code completion suggestions. While looking, I found a couple forums where comments were made that there aren’t many people using XSL any more, and that got me thinking: is this a relevant technology anymore?
People always make comments such as XSLT isn’t relevant any more, which translates as ‘I have no need for XSLT’. There are currently 8,371 questions on SO tagged with XSLT, so yes, that seems pretty relevant.
My previous job was principally as an XSLT stylesheet designer, and I did it for 8 years (I also did java, C++ and C#) and the stuff I did there which was html formatting for display, I would have had difficulty doing using other methods. Obviously it wouldn’t have been impossible, but it was the best tool for the job. I also did XSLT-FO there, which again would have been harder to to in another way, the only way I could think of would have been css3, which would have also needed XSLT.
So yes, it was very relevant to me. If you don’t need it, it is not relevant to you. It is a matter of perspective like so many things