XSLT 2.0 vs. XQuery
May 17, 2006
Over at IBM’s developerWorks, Benoit Marchal has an article, Comparing XSLT 2.0 and XQuery. Quoting briefly from the intro:
Since it was introduced in November 1999, I have found that XSLT, the XSL Transformations language, is one of the most useful (if not the most useful) tools you can use to manipulate XML documents. Many available APIs and tools work with XML documents from Java or other languages, and I have used many of them in different projects, but cannot recall an XML project that did not use at least some XSLT.
It should come as no surprise, then, that I have followed the development of XSLT 2.0 with great interest. XSLT is a powerful language, sophisticated enough to handle even the most complex manipulation, but it is also very verbose and that makes it more difficult to debug and maintain large stylesheets. The W3C hopes to address this, and other problems, when it releases two languages: XSLT 2.0 and XQuery 1.0. This article compares the two upcoming languages and provides some pointers on how best to use them.
One of the great things about the Web, of course, is the abundance of technical information available in the clear and free of charge. I have always liked IBM’s sites, in particular, though, because they seem to have the most vendor-neutral and useful content on important, emerging technologies.
Posted by Bill Trippe at May 17, 2006 3:08 PM
