XML and XSL are
XML and XSL are amazing technologies and both are Good Things. For the first time ever, I'm actually building web pages with content and presentation completely separate. It's one of the original visions of the web, and it's finally possible. Another great benefit of building pages in XML & XSL
is that they're easily read and interpreted by other computers, which leads to a true semantic web. A semantic web is one where search engines work and data is easily shared and interchanged between servers. It reminds me of Tim Berners-Lee's visions for the web, if you haven't read this book, drop everything and pick up a copy.
Learning a new technology also reminds of the first time I programmed HTML. It's like 1995 all over again, I'm learning new tags, debugging my bad code, and being amazed when pages actually work in a browser. And like learning HTML in 1995, there's not a lot of information in print or on the web about it. I've got a growning bookmark list, but there's little beginning information out there. Webmonkey has a good intro to XML and one on XSLT, but where are the plethora of tutorials like Justin's and Dr. Web's? It's unbelievable that there are no books available at Amazon on XSL.