Comments on: xml-stylesheet and the World of Warcraft home page http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/07/30/xml-stylesheet-and-the-world-of-warcraft-home-page It's all spinning wheels and self-doubt until the first pot of coffee. Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:23:09 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0-alpha By: Mike Riley http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/07/30/xml-stylesheet-and-the-world-of-warcraft-home-page/comment-page-1#comment-399120 Mike Riley Wed, 15 Apr 2009 06:41:42 +0000 http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/07/30/xml-stylesheet-and-the-world-of-warcraft-home-page#comment-399120 <p>I'm really confused as to why they have gone with this particular implementation, from the standpoint of separating content from design, using XML as the data layer and XSL as the display layer is completely beautiful. But if you really look closely at the source of WOW's homepage, they actually have a lot of the content served up INSIDE THE XSL. The XSL sheets are specific to each page, and it drives me insane trying to understand the logic behind doing this.</p> <p>If you have any insight into it, please, drop me a line, because I'm at a loss.</p> I’m really confused as to why they have gone with this particular implementation, from the standpoint of separating content from design, using XML as the data layer and XSL as the display layer is completely beautiful. But if you really look closely at the source of WOW’s homepage, they actually have a lot of the content served up INSIDE THE XSL. The XSL sheets are specific to each page, and it drives me insane trying to understand the logic behind doing this.

If you have any insight into it, please, drop me a line, because I’m at a loss.

]]> By: M. David Peterson http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/07/30/xml-stylesheet-and-the-world-of-warcraft-home-page/comment-page-1#comment-30627 M. David Peterson Tue, 01 Aug 2006 01:00:54 +0000 http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/07/30/xml-stylesheet-and-the-world-of-warcraft-home-page#comment-30627 <blockquote> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>Yeah, but DOM scripting sucks so bad. :( I like Javascript, but I hate DOM scripting. (My kingdom for widespread adoption of E4X.)</p> </blockquote> <p>We do it because there’s no other way. But I really want a better way… <<</p> <p>Amen to that!</p>

Yeah, but DOM scripting sucks so bad. :( I like Javascript, but I hate DOM scripting. (My kingdom for widespread adoption of E4X.)

We do it because there’s no other way. But I really want a better way…
<<

Amen to that!

]]> By: Aristotle Pagaltzis http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/07/30/xml-stylesheet-and-the-world-of-warcraft-home-page/comment-page-1#comment-30605 Aristotle Pagaltzis Mon, 31 Jul 2006 20:21:28 +0000 http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/07/30/xml-stylesheet-and-the-world-of-warcraft-home-page#comment-30605 <blockquote> <p>if you use it that way, you might as well throw in some unobtrusive JS to wrangle the DOM into desired shape</p> </blockquote> <p>Yeah, but DOM scripting sucks so bad. :<b></b>( I like Javascript, but I hate DOM scripting. (My kingdom for widespread adoption of E4X.)</p> <p>We do it because there’s no other way. But I really want a better way…</p>

if you use it that way, you might as well throw in some unobtrusive JS to wrangle the DOM into desired shape

Yeah, but DOM scripting sucks so bad. :( I like Javascript, but I hate DOM scripting. (My kingdom for widespread adoption of E4X.)

We do it because there’s no other way. But I really want a better way…

]]> By: Eby http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/07/30/xml-stylesheet-and-the-world-of-warcraft-home-page/comment-page-1#comment-30588 Eby Mon, 31 Jul 2006 16:20:06 +0000 http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/07/30/xml-stylesheet-and-the-world-of-warcraft-home-page#comment-30588 <p>The change was recent. I think there are some posts around about the change. Before it was a table-based tag soup that took forever to load. It still is some soup but it looks much lighter then it did back then. They most likely did the change to save on bandwidth and/or make things easier to change. I postponed my account awhile back though.</p> <p>They don't seem to advertise it but they now appear to finally have RSS for the news:</p> <p>www.worldofwarcraft.com/rss.xml</p> The change was recent. I think there are some posts around about the change. Before it was a table-based tag soup that took forever to load. It still is some soup but it looks much lighter then it did back then. They most likely did the change to save on bandwidth and/or make things easier to change. I postponed my account awhile back though.

They don’t seem to advertise it but they now appear to finally have RSS for the news:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/rss.xml

]]> By: M. David Peterson http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/07/30/xml-stylesheet-and-the-world-of-warcraft-home-page/comment-page-1#comment-30584 M. David Peterson Mon, 31 Jul 2006 15:48:14 +0000 http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/07/30/xml-stylesheet-and-the-world-of-warcraft-home-page#comment-30584 <p>Hi Leslie,</p> <p>This has been an area of keen interest, and in particular, specialized research and development[1], for over three years now. Opera was the last of the major browser vendors to add XSLT support -- while there are still a few broken areas[2, 3], things are getting better. In short, IE 5.x+, Mozilla, and Safari <em>ALL</em> support XSLT 1.0, with Opera only a few functions short of full support.</p> <p>Theres a lot that can be done in this area, and dependent on a few factors that may boost its arrival, expect to see a TON more in this area from my direction in regards to OSS software projects released that build and extend from this in a BIG way.</p> <p>[1] http://www.xsltblog.com/archives/2005/12/finally<em>someone</em>1.html [2] http://www.oreillynet.com/xml/blog/2006/06/opera<em>90</em>final<em>released.html [3] http://www.oreillynet.com/xml/blog/2006/07/no</em>sign<em>of</em>document<em>function</em>b.html</p> Hi Leslie,

This has been an area of keen interest, and in particular, specialized research and development[1], for over three years now. Opera was the last of the major browser vendors to add XSLT support — while there are still a few broken areas[2, 3], things are getting better. In short, IE 5.x+, Mozilla, and Safari ALL support XSLT 1.0, with Opera only a few functions short of full support.

Theres a lot that can be done in this area, and dependent on a few factors that may boost its arrival, expect to see a TON more in this area from my direction in regards to OSS software projects released that build and extend from this in a BIG way.

[1] http://www.xsltblog.com/archives/2005/12/finallysomeone1.html
[2] http://www.oreillynet.com/xml/blog/2006/06/opera90finalreleased.html
[3] http://www.oreillynet.com/xml/blog/2006/07/nosignofdocumentfunctionb.html

]]> By: George Hotelling http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/07/30/xml-stylesheet-and-the-world-of-warcraft-home-page/comment-page-1#comment-30578 George Hotelling Mon, 31 Jul 2006 14:38:53 +0000 http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/07/30/xml-stylesheet-and-the-world-of-warcraft-home-page#comment-30578 <p>I suspect that WoW's audience consists of earlier-than-average adopters, so they can expect the latest browser versions. The only way to know whether or not you can pull it off (from a business perspective) is by looking at your user agent headers in your logs.</p> <p>That said, I am in love with the idea of replacing most of my DOM scripting with XSL.</p> I suspect that WoW’s audience consists of earlier-than-average adopters, so they can expect the latest browser versions. The only way to know whether or not you can pull it off (from a business perspective) is by looking at your user agent headers in your logs.

That said, I am in love with the idea of replacing most of my DOM scripting with XSL.

]]> By: l.m.orchard http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/07/30/xml-stylesheet-and-the-world-of-warcraft-home-page/comment-page-1#comment-30574 l.m.orchard Mon, 31 Jul 2006 14:04:05 +0000 http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/07/30/xml-stylesheet-and-the-world-of-warcraft-home-page#comment-30574 <p>Aristotle: Of course, if you use it that way, you might as well throw in some unobtrusive JS to wrangle the DOM into desired shape. I wonder which is more efficient to run, and which would be smoother to write? JS and DOM scripting leads to all sorts of uncomfortable loops that make me wish for XSL's XPath matches...</p> Aristotle: Of course, if you use it that way, you might as well throw in some unobtrusive JS to wrangle the DOM into desired shape. I wonder which is more efficient to run, and which would be smoother to write? JS and DOM scripting leads to all sorts of uncomfortable loops that make me wish for XSL’s XPath matches…

]]> By: Aristotle Pagaltzis http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/07/30/xml-stylesheet-and-the-world-of-warcraft-home-page/comment-page-1#comment-30561 Aristotle Pagaltzis Mon, 31 Jul 2006 09:18:40 +0000 http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/07/30/xml-stylesheet-and-the-world-of-warcraft-home-page#comment-30561 <p>It’s a fine idea, as long as you remember that the untransformed markup must be able to pass for HTML that is navigable as is, lest you shut out search engines, speech browsers etc.</p> <p>If I made use of this, I’d serve up actual XHTML and use the stylesheet only to insert repetitious bits of markup. Now that I think about that, it might in fact be a sweet way to inject the extra non-semantic markup required by the easy techniques for rounded corners or sliding doors, without actually touching the document. Oh, oh! Zebra tables! Hmmmm, now I’m thinking.</p> <p>Gotta investigate.</p> It’s a fine idea, as long as you remember that the untransformed markup must be able to pass for HTML that is navigable as is, lest you shut out search engines, speech browsers etc.

If I made use of this, I’d serve up actual XHTML and use the stylesheet only to insert repetitious bits of markup. Now that I think about that, it might in fact be a sweet way to inject the extra non-semantic markup required by the easy techniques for rounded corners or sliding doors, without actually touching the document. Oh, oh! Zebra tables! Hmmmm, now I’m thinking.

Gotta investigate.

]]> By: John Resig http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/07/30/xml-stylesheet-and-the-world-of-warcraft-home-page/comment-page-1#comment-30515 John Resig Sun, 30 Jul 2006 21:23:33 +0000 http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/07/30/xml-stylesheet-and-the-world-of-warcraft-home-page#comment-30515 <p>Wow, that's really interesting - I wonder if they serve things up based upon the user agent that's used. If not, I wonder how they deal with search engine indexing.</p> Wow, that’s really interesting – I wonder if they serve things up based upon the user agent that’s used. If not, I wonder how they deal with search engine indexing.

]]> By: Brett O'Connor http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/07/30/xml-stylesheet-and-the-world-of-warcraft-home-page/comment-page-1#comment-30514 Brett O'Connor Sun, 30 Jul 2006 21:00:28 +0000 http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/07/30/xml-stylesheet-and-the-world-of-warcraft-home-page#comment-30514 <p>If you go to <a href="http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/index.xml" rel="nofollow">http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/index.xml</a> it works.</p> <p>And yea, they made that change just last month. I've seen the parsing errors like that at least three times since then. All of them have had to do with the non-"www" hostname. I wonder why?</p> If you go to http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/index.xml it works.

And yea, they made that change just last month. I’ve seen the parsing errors like that at least three times since then. All of them have had to do with the non-”www” hostname. I wonder why?

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