XSLT

A few weeks ago this job was posted:

> Online URL for this job: http://jobs.perl.org/job/2976
> Posted: August 18, 2005
> Company name: e/t/s didactic media
> [...]
> Required skills:
> [...]
> - XML, DOM, XSLT (using XML::LibXML and XML::LibXSLT)
> [...]
> 
> Desired skills:
> - enhanced mod_perl development
> - Apache::ASP
> - Template-Toolkit
> - SOAP::Lite
> - PHP (yes, you're reading correct)


And more recently:

> Online URL for this job: http://jobs.perl.org/job/2994
> Posted: August 24, 2005
> Company name: Night Kitchen Media
> [...]
> The candidate will work with our graphics and programming departments to
> transition Dreamweaver HTML templates into a content management system. 
> [...]
> Required skills:
> Perl 5 fluency 
> HTML / CSS fluency 
> XML / XSLT fluency  
> Dreamweaver template proficiency.


And there were several jobs last month mentioning XSLT as a requirement.

I'm surprised to see so many Perl jobs mentioning XSLT these days. While 
you can certainly use XSLT with Perl (and there are CPAN modules to help 
with that), it seemed in the past that XSLT was more likely to be used 
by non-Perl developers, and that Perl projects would be built around 
HTML::Mason, Template-Toolkit, HTML::Template, or any of the dozens of 
other templating tools. The two groups of technologies seemed to be in 
their own worlds, and incompatible.

Anyone have theories as to why XSLT is rising in popularity on Perl 
projects?

Is XSLT being used to solve other problems, rather than as a replacement 
technology for traditional Perl templating modules? (Perhaps on these 
projects it isn't even being used directly with Perl, though the first 
job above mentions XML::LibXSLT.)

Are developers finally realizing the limitations of "mini-language" 
templating systems and are transitioning to technologies like XSLT or 
XMLC? (You can send flames off-list if you want to debate this 
assertion. :-)

  -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/e/fps/3452158/