Many higher-education open source software utilize a Java / XSLT stack (e.g. JA-SIG uPortal, Sakai) and I agree that XSL can be quite tedious and verbose. It's

Many higher-education open source software utilize a Java / XSLT stack (e.g. JA-SIG uPortal, Sakai) and I agree that XSL can be quite tedious and verbose. It's definitely the type of language that, if you work with it just "once in while", is very frustrating. If an XSL file it's not broken down into manageable templates it becomes very hard to follow. If you're not so lucky and have to deal with extremely large XSL files, it's easier to just give in and purchase one of the available XML/XSL IDE's. There are a few good ones and they do save a lot of time. No need to struggle through it with a plain text editor.