4 ms·

Would you be willing to entertain the idea that, perhaps, you haven't noticed you actually used XSLT during your mundane browsing? Sample page, how would you te

by randunel 11mo ago

Would you be willing to entertain the idea that, perhaps, you haven't noticed you actually used XSLT during your mundane browsing? Sample page, how would you tell? https://www.europarl.europa.eu/politicalparties/index_en.xml https://www.europarl.europa.eu/politicalparties/index_en.xml

yoz-y 11mo ago
Naturally I meant as a developer. I don’t doubt I came past xslt rendered pages.
cedilla 11mo ago
Sure there are examples of websites using XSLT, but so far I've only seen the dozen or maybe two dozen, and it really looks like they are extremely rare. And I'm pretty sure the EU parliament et. al. will find someone to rework their page. This really is just a storm in a waterglass. Nothing like the hundreds or tens of thousands of flash and java applet based web pages that went defunct when we deprecated those technologies.
- efilife 11mo ago
  You ignored the argument (though probably not intentionally). You talk about how many you've seen. But you probably seen way more and never realized
  - cedilla 11mo ago
    If there were that many, why do people only list the same handful again and again? And where are all the /operators/ of those websites complaining? Is it possible that installing an XSLT processor on the server is not as big a hassle as everyone pretends? Again: this is nothing like Flash or Java applets (or even ActiveX). People were seriously considering Apple's decision to not support Flash on iPhone as a strategic blunder due to the number of sites using it. Your local news station probably had video or a stock market ticker using Flash. You didn't have to hunt for examples.
    - basscomm 11mo ago
      > If there were that many, why do people only list the same handful again and again? And where are all the /operators/ of those websites complaining? I've spent the last several years making a website based on XML and XSLT. I complain about the XML/XSLT deprecation from browsers all the time. And the announcements in August that Google was exploring getting rid of XSLT in the browser (which, it turned out, wasn't exploratory at all, it was a performative action that led to a foregone conclusion) was so full of blowback that the discussion got locked and Google forged ahead anyway. > Is it possible that installing an XSLT processor on the server is not as big a hassle as everyone pretends? This presumes that everyone interested in making something with XML and XSLT has access to configure the web server it's hosted on. With support in the browser, I can throw some static files up just about anywhere and it'll Just Work(tm)
      - shadowgovt 11mo ago
        If the server behavior can't be changed, there's a couple JavaScript engines to do the rendering client-side.
        basscomm 11mo ago
        Running a script that interprets a different script to transform a document just complicates things. What do I do when the transform fails? I have to figure out how to debug both XSLT and JavaScript to figure out what broke. I don't have any desire to learn JavaScript (or use someone else's script) just to do some basic templating.
        shadowgovt 11mo ago
        What does one do when transform fails right now? You have to debug both XSLT and a binary you don't have the source for; debugging JavaScript seems like a step up, right?
        basscomm 11mo ago
- gucci-on-fleek 11mo ago
  > This really is just a storm in a waterglass. Nothing like the hundreds or tens of thousands of flash and java applet based web pages that went defunct when we deprecated those technologies. Sure, but Flash and Java were never standards-compliant parts of the web platform. As far as I'm aware, this is the first time that something has been removed from the web platform without any replacements—Mutation Events [0] come close, but Mutation Observers are a fairly close replacement, and it took 10 years for them to be fully deprecated and removed from browsers. [0]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/MutationEvent https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/MutationEve...
- glenstein 11mo ago
  Those had good rationale for deprecating that I would say don't apply in this instance. Flash and Java applets were closed, insecure plugins outside the web's open standards, so removing them made sense. XSLT is a W3C standard built into the web's data and presentation layer. Dropping it means weakening the open infrastructure rather than cleaning it up.
- drob518 11mo ago
  They are definitely rare. And I suspect that if you eliminate government web sites where usage of standards is encouraged, if not mandated, the sightings “in the wild” are very low. My guess would be less than 1% of sites use XSLT.
jeltz 11mo ago
Battle.net's forums used to use XSLT and be a buggy mess, but not sure if that was related to their use of XSLT.
- basscomm 11mo ago
  It's possible to write buggy software in every language.
  - javcasas 11mo ago
    Some programming languages and runtimes encourage writing more bugs.
  - DonHopkins 11mo ago
    Then write it in languages that have debuggers, instead of XSLT.
    - basscomm 11mo ago
      > Then write it in languages that have debuggers, instead of XSLT. Up until a few years ago, I could debug basic stuff in FireFox. If Firefox encountered an XSLT parsing error, it would show an error page with a big ASCII arrow pointing to the instruction that failed. That was a useful clue. Now it shows a blank page, which is not useful at all.
monerozcash 11mo ago
There exists a much better html version of that page, which also comes up as the first google result and is easier to discover on the website. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/about-parliament/en/organisation-and-rules/organisation/political-groups https://www.europarl.europa.eu/about-parliament/en/organisat...
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- 8organicbits 11mo ago
  The lack of the jump scare cookie banner on the XSLT version is certainly an improvement, but I otherwise agree. Google search burying XSLT driven pages isn't a surprise given their stance.
  - shadowgovt 11mo ago
    I don't think there's any evidence to suggest that Chromium's position on this impacts Google's Pagerank algorithm at all.
    - 8organicbits 11mo ago
      I think Google has a general philosophy of the web that promotes crawlable HTML over other formats. I noticed recently that traditional job aggregators like XML job feeds, yet Google promotes JobSchema as an incompatible standard. So less that Chromium directs pagerank, and more that Google's genreral view of the web is HTML over XML. I hope JobSchema fails because it is harder to aggregate, unless you already index web pages at scale. Although I don't have firm evidence, haven't worked at Google, and you likely know company dynamics better than I.

yoz-y 11mo ago

Naturally I meant as a developer. I don’t doubt I came past xslt rendered pages.

cedilla 11mo ago

Sure there are examples of websites using XSLT, but so far I've only seen the dozen or maybe two dozen, and it really looks like they are extremely rare. And I'm pretty sure the EU parliament et. al. will find someone to rework their page. This really is just a storm in a waterglass. Nothing like the hundreds or tens of thousands of flash and java applet based web pages that went defunct when we deprecated those technologies.

efilife 11mo ago
You ignored the argument (though probably not intentionally). You talk about how many you've seen. But you probably seen way more and never realized
- cedilla 11mo ago
  If there were that many, why do people only list the same handful again and again? And where are all the /operators/ of those websites complaining? Is it possible that installing an XSLT processor on the server is not as big a hassle as everyone pretends? Again: this is nothing like Flash or Java applets (or even ActiveX). People were seriously considering Apple's decision to not support Flash on iPhone as a strategic blunder due to the number of sites using it. Your local news station probably had video or a stock market ticker using Flash. You didn't have to hunt for examples.
  - basscomm 11mo ago
    > If there were that many, why do people only list the same handful again and again? And where are all the /operators/ of those websites complaining? I've spent the last several years making a website based on XML and XSLT. I complain about the XML/XSLT deprecation from browsers all the time. And the announcements in August that Google was exploring getting rid of XSLT in the browser (which, it turned out, wasn't exploratory at all, it was a performative action that led to a foregone conclusion) was so full of blowback that the discussion got locked and Google forged ahead anyway. > Is it possible that installing an XSLT processor on the server is not as big a hassle as everyone pretends? This presumes that everyone interested in making something with XML and XSLT has access to configure the web server it's hosted on. With support in the browser, I can throw some static files up just about anywhere and it'll Just Work(tm)
    - shadowgovt 11mo ago
      If the server behavior can't be changed, there's a couple JavaScript engines to do the rendering client-side.
      - basscomm 11mo ago
        Running a script that interprets a different script to transform a document just complicates things. What do I do when the transform fails? I have to figure out how to debug both XSLT and JavaScript to figure out what broke. I don't have any desire to learn JavaScript (or use someone else's script) just to do some basic templating.
        shadowgovt 11mo ago
        What does one do when transform fails right now? You have to debug both XSLT and a binary you don't have the source for; debugging JavaScript seems like a step up, right?
        basscomm 11mo ago
gucci-on-fleek 11mo ago
> This really is just a storm in a waterglass. Nothing like the hundreds or tens of thousands of flash and java applet based web pages that went defunct when we deprecated those technologies. Sure, but Flash and Java were never standards-compliant parts of the web platform. As far as I'm aware, this is the first time that something has been removed from the web platform without any replacements—Mutation Events [0] come close, but Mutation Observers are a fairly close replacement, and it took 10 years for them to be fully deprecated and removed from browsers. [0]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/MutationEvent https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/MutationEve...
glenstein 11mo ago
Those had good rationale for deprecating that I would say don't apply in this instance. Flash and Java applets were closed, insecure plugins outside the web's open standards, so removing them made sense. XSLT is a W3C standard built into the web's data and presentation layer. Dropping it means weakening the open infrastructure rather than cleaning it up.
drob518 11mo ago
They are definitely rare. And I suspect that if you eliminate government web sites where usage of standards is encouraged, if not mandated, the sightings “in the wild” are very low. My guess would be less than 1% of sites use XSLT.

jeltz 11mo ago

Battle.net's forums used to use XSLT and be a buggy mess, but not sure if that was related to their use of XSLT.

basscomm 11mo ago
It's possible to write buggy software in every language.
- javcasas 11mo ago
  Some programming languages and runtimes encourage writing more bugs.
- DonHopkins 11mo ago
  Then write it in languages that have debuggers, instead of XSLT.
  - basscomm 11mo ago
    > Then write it in languages that have debuggers, instead of XSLT. Up until a few years ago, I could debug basic stuff in FireFox. If Firefox encountered an XSLT parsing error, it would show an error page with a big ASCII arrow pointing to the instruction that failed. That was a useful clue. Now it shows a blank page, which is not useful at all.

monerozcash 11mo ago

There exists a much better html version of that page, which also comes up as the first google result and is easier to discover on the website. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/about-parliament/en/organisation-and-rules/organisation/political-groups https://www.europarl.europa.eu/about-parliament/en/organisat...

deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
8organicbits 11mo ago
The lack of the jump scare cookie banner on the XSLT version is certainly an improvement, but I otherwise agree. Google search burying XSLT driven pages isn't a surprise given their stance.
- shadowgovt 11mo ago
  I don't think there's any evidence to suggest that Chromium's position on this impacts Google's Pagerank algorithm at all.
  - 8organicbits 11mo ago
    I think Google has a general philosophy of the web that promotes crawlable HTML over other formats. I noticed recently that traditional job aggregators like XML job feeds, yet Google promotes JobSchema as an incompatible standard. So less that Chromium directs pagerank, and more that Google's genreral view of the web is HTML over XML. I hope JobSchema fails because it is harder to aggregate, unless you already index web pages at scale. Although I don't have firm evidence, haven't worked at Google, and you likely know company dynamics better than I.