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Indeed, xinclude would be great. Combine that with an HTML-based and declarative web-component solution and it would go a long way to reducing the need for scri

Indeed, xinclude would be great. Combine that with an HTML-based and declarative web-component solution and it would go a long way to reducing the need for scripting on basic websites.

giantrobot 4y ago
You mostly just described XSL. There's a ton of templating XSL can do "for free" in the browser with no JavaScript.
- akvadrako 4y ago
  Yes, I was a big fan of XSL. Too bad it didn't catch on.
- franga2000 4y ago
  Sure, but it's about as far from user/dev friendly as it gets. I recently had to make a standalone FAQ-style page and got the idea to use XSL to render it from an XML file (since you can teach any semi-literate person how to write XML in like 5 minutes). Firstly, XSL is so much weirder than any templating engine we're used to, that it took me stupidly long to do the most basic things. Then it turns out, browsers don't include default styles in XSL-rendered documents (no headings, no lists, nothing!), so I had to style it completely from scratch. Everything in the XML "ecosystem" (XSL, XPath, XDT, SOAP) is so unfriendly that I'm no longer surprised everyone is reinventing these concepts in (unfortunately) JSON these days.
  - frosted-flakes 4y ago
    XSD (XML Schema Definition) is pretty good though, and it makes autocomplete and spotting errors when hand-writing XML files very easy.
    - UncleEntity 4y ago
      I’ve messed around with generating SVG classes in python and C++ using the XSD schema and while it is pretty good it falls flat on its face for anything complicated like SVG. Resorted to using the DTD schema as it can support complex things (and that’s what they use for the probably never to be released updated version) through some python hackery to generate a hundred or more classes that takes forever to compile and, strangely enough, actually does what its supposed to do which is represent SVG as a bunch of classes with reading/writing to xml. I was going through a phase and tried that with rss but it was more hassle than it was worth. —edit— Should add the DTD makes things like enums for tags or whatever simple so you can have typed values and property formed xml documents — can’t remember if I ever managed to get that working with the XSD.

Indeed, xinclude would be great. Combine that with an HTML-based and declarative web-component solution and it would go a long way to reducing the need for scripting on basic websites.

giantrobot 4y ago

You mostly just described XSL. There's a ton of templating XSL can do "for free" in the browser with no JavaScript.

akvadrako 4y ago
Yes, I was a big fan of XSL. Too bad it didn't catch on.
franga2000 4y ago
Sure, but it's about as far from user/dev friendly as it gets. I recently had to make a standalone FAQ-style page and got the idea to use XSL to render it from an XML file (since you can teach any semi-literate person how to write XML in like 5 minutes). Firstly, XSL is so much weirder than any templating engine we're used to, that it took me stupidly long to do the most basic things. Then it turns out, browsers don't include default styles in XSL-rendered documents (no headings, no lists, nothing!), so I had to style it completely from scratch. Everything in the XML "ecosystem" (XSL, XPath, XDT, SOAP) is so unfriendly that I'm no longer surprised everyone is reinventing these concepts in (unfortunately) JSON these days.
- frosted-flakes 4y ago
  XSD (XML Schema Definition) is pretty good though, and it makes autocomplete and spotting errors when hand-writing XML files very easy.
  - UncleEntity 4y ago
    I’ve messed around with generating SVG classes in python and C++ using the XSD schema and while it is pretty good it falls flat on its face for anything complicated like SVG. Resorted to using the DTD schema as it can support complex things (and that’s what they use for the probably never to be released updated version) through some python hackery to generate a hundred or more classes that takes forever to compile and, strangely enough, actually does what its supposed to do which is represent SVG as a bunch of classes with reading/writing to xml. I was going through a phase and tried that with rss but it was more hassle than it was worth. —edit— Should add the DTD makes things like enums for tags or whatever simple so you can have typed values and property formed xml documents — can’t remember if I ever managed to get that working with the XSD.