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"Remove mentions of XSLT from the html spec"

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Re: "Remove mentions of XSLT from the html spec"

#401

Post by shiomiru »

maratc wrote: post #77
nicce wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why flagged? The post was reasonable.

Probably labeling a removal of a format (which is somewhat niche anyway) as "killing the open web" was a bit hyperbolic and not entirely warranted in this case. Imagine that tomorrow, Google announces plans to stop supporting HTML and move everyone to its own version of "CompuServe", delivered only via Google Fiber and accessible only with Google Chrome. What headline would you suggest for that occasion? " Google is…

Right. If anything, it's the opposite: removing XSLT reduces the complexity of existing browsers, allowing new ones to catch up faster.

To me it seems that some people just really like using XSLT, and don't want it gone. Which is fair, but it also has nothing to do with the web's openness - yes, Google has far too much power, but XSLT isn't helping.

Re: "Remove mentions of XSLT from the html spec"

#402

Post by pbhjpbhj »

sugarpimpdorsey wrote: post #216
kg wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Former Mozilla and Google (Chrome team specifically) dev here. The way I see what you're saying is: Representatives from Chrome/Blink, Safari/Webkit, and Firefox/Gecko are all supportive of removing XSLT from the web platform, regardless of whether it's still being used. It's okay because someone from Mozilla brought it up. Out of those three projects, two are notoriously under-resourced, and one is notorious for con…

> Representatives from Chrome/Blink, Safari/Webkit, and Firefox/Gecko are all supportive of removing XSLT Did anybody bother checking with Microsoft? XML/XSLT is very enterprisey and this will likely break a lot of intranet (or $$$ commercial) applications. Secondly, why is Firefox/Gecko given full weight for their vote when their marketshare is dwindling into irrelevancy? It's the equivalent of the crazy cat hoarder…

It has long seemed like Firefox is likely doing Google's bidding? That could be a reason why they're given a full vote?

/abject-speculation

Re: "Remove mentions of XSLT from the html spec"

#403

Post by geocar »

codedokode wrote: post #372
geocar wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Serving a server-generated HTML page could be even faster. Except it isn't. Lots of things could be faster than they are.

Loading one page is probably faster that loading a template and only after that loading the data with the second request, given that the network latency can be pretty high. That's why Google serves (served?) its main page as a single file and not as multiple HTML/CSS/JS files.

> Loading one page is probably faster that loading a template and only after that loading the data with the second request, given that the network latency can be pretty high

XSLT is XML: It can be served with the XML as a single request.

You don't have any idea what you're talking about.

> That's why Google serves (served?) its main page as a single file and not as multiple HTML/CSS/JS files.

Google.com used to be about a kilobyte. Now it's 100kb. I think it's absolutely clear Google either doesn't have the first idea how to make things fast, or doesn't care.

Re: "Remove mentions of XSLT from the html spec"

#404

Post by spankalee »

const_cast wrote: post #379
sugarpimpdorsey wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Representatives from Chrome/Blink, Safari/Webkit, and Firefox/Gecko are all supportive of removing XSLT Did anybody bother checking with Microsoft? XML/XSLT is very enterprisey and this will likely break a lot of intranet (or $$$ commercial) applications. Secondly, why is Firefox/Gecko given full weight for their vote when their marketshare is dwindling into irrelevancy? It's the equivalent of the crazy cat hoarder…

> Did anybody bother checking with Microsoft? > Secondly, why is Firefox/Gecko given full weight for their vote when their marketshare is dwindling into irrelevancy? The juxtaposition of these two statements is very funny. Firefox actually develops a browser, Microsoft doesn't. That's why Firefox gets a say and Microsoft doesn't. Microsoft jumped off the browser game years ago. No, changing the search engine from Goo…

This is not true. Microsoft is participating in standards and implementing them in Blink.

Re: "Remove mentions of XSLT from the html spec"

#405

Post by webstrand »

bilog wrote: post #394
webstrand wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be incredible if we could pull it into the javascript/wasm sandbox and get xslt 3.0 support. The best of both worlds, at the cost of a performance hit on those pages, but not a terrible cost.

There's even a JS implementation of XSLT 3.0 already (SaxonJS).

That's pretty cool, its too bad the license is a bit confusing about whether bundling with Chrome or Firefox would be permissible under the license.

Re: "Remove mentions of XSLT from the html spec"

#406

Post by Jubijub »

solardev wrote: post #208
kg wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Former Mozilla and Google (Chrome team specifically) dev here. The way I see what you're saying is: Representatives from Chrome/Blink, Safari/Webkit, and Firefox/Gecko are all supportive of removing XSLT from the web platform, regardless of whether it's still being used. It's okay because someone from Mozilla brought it up. Out of those three projects, two are notoriously under-resourced, and one is notorious for con…

Bring back VRML! Seriously though, if I were forced to maintain every tiny legacy feature in a 20 year old app... I'd also become a "former" dev :) Even in its heyday, XSLT seemed like an afterthought. Probably there are a handful of legacy corporate users hanging on to it for dear life. But if infinitely more popular techs (like Flash or FTP or non HTTPS sites) can be deprecated without much fuss... I don't think XS…

+1. I worked on an internal corporate eCommerce in 2005 built entirely on DOM + XSLT to create the final HTML. It was an atrocious pain in the neck to maintain (despite being server side so the browser never had to deal with the XSLT). Unless you still manipulate XML and need to transform it in various other formats through XSLT/XSL-FO, I don’t see why anyone would bother with it. It always cracks me up when people « demand » support for features hardly ever used for which they won’t spend a dime or a minute to help

Re: "Remove mentions of XSLT from the html spec"

#407

Post by FridgeSeal »

geocar wrote: post #178
fngjdflmdflg wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kind of agree that little used,[0] non-web-like features is fair to be considered for removal. However I wish they didn't hide behind security vulnerabilities as the reason as that clearly wasn't it. The author didn't even bother to look if a memory safe package existed. "We're removing this for your own good" is the worst way to go about it but he still doubles down on this idea later in the thread. [0] ~0.001% us…

> [0] ~0.001% usage according to one post there This is still a massive number of people who are going to be affected by this. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44938747

It’s classic Google behaviour: “oh not used by a billion people? Didn’t get popular enough, axe it”.

They arguably became a victim of their own scale.

Re: "Remove mentions of XSLT from the html spec"

#408

Post by saurik »

const_cast wrote: post #379
sugarpimpdorsey wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Representatives from Chrome/Blink, Safari/Webkit, and Firefox/Gecko are all supportive of removing XSLT Did anybody bother checking with Microsoft? XML/XSLT is very enterprisey and this will likely break a lot of intranet (or $$$ commercial) applications. Secondly, why is Firefox/Gecko given full weight for their vote when their marketshare is dwindling into irrelevancy? It's the equivalent of the crazy cat hoarder…

> Did anybody bother checking with Microsoft? > Secondly, why is Firefox/Gecko given full weight for their vote when their marketshare is dwindling into irrelevancy? The juxtaposition of these two statements is very funny. Firefox actually develops a browser, Microsoft doesn't. That's why Firefox gets a say and Microsoft doesn't. Microsoft jumped off the browser game years ago. No, changing the search engine from Goo…

You make it sound like those two thoughts are incompatible in juxtaposition, but they are in fact perfectly consistent, even if you were correct that Microsoft isn't building anything, as the premise is that users matter more than elbow grease. The reason why you'd want to ask Microsoft is the same reason why you might not bother consulting Firefox: because Microsoft has actual users they represent, and Firefox does not.

Re: "Remove mentions of XSLT from the html spec"

#409

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

AlienRobot wrote: post #326
chrismorgan wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But if infinitely more popular techs (like Flash or FTP or non HTTPS sites) can be deprecated without much fuss... I don't think XSLT has much of a leg to stand on... Flash was not part of the web platform. It was a plugin, a plugin that was, over time, abandoned by its maker. FTP was not part of the web platform. It was a separate protocol that some browsers just happened to include a handler for. If you have an F…

Flash was the best part of the web, though.

Not if you were on a non-mainstream platform. Like some Linux, or oh my gawd NetBSD!1!!

I couldn't be more happy about its demise.

Re: "Remove mentions of XSLT from the html spec"

#410

Post by em-bee »

youngtaff wrote: post #395
em-bee wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i also don't see XSLT solving any problem that javascript could not solve. heck, if you rally need XSLT in the browser, using javascript you could even call some library like saxonjs, or you could run it webassembly.

How do you format a raw XML file in the browser without XSLT?

instead of including a reference to the XSLT sylesheet apparently you can also include javascript: https://stackoverflow.com/a/16426395
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