How Cool is XSL?!!!

How Cool is XSL?!!!

XSL is one of those things that I’ve put off until needed such as a project that pays.  I’ve always considered it a toy like HTML in the 90’s.  Now that I’ve been buried in XSL for the last week and a half, I can really appreciate the seriously extensive work that theW3C put into the specification. 

I’m a bit green at all things XSL, but here is my XSL wishlist if I’m not actually missing things.

• A string formatting function such as printf or string.Format()  The string concatenation is too cumbersome.
• A shorthand alias so most things can be placed on one line such as template parameters.
• Out parameters for templates instead of putting the template output wherever it currently is in the document.

So before I move on from XSL development, my vote is that XSL is really cool and has its place in HTML projects.

My current reference books on the subject of XSL are great and they are:

XSLT and XPath On The Edge, Unlimited Edition 

   and

The XSL Companion

XSL Resources
XPath and XSL
http://www.ibiblio.org/xml/books/bible3/chapters/ch15.html