I recently started tinkering with XSLT. After a short while it occurred to me that I could do everything in Perl using XML::Simple or XML::Twig or XML::SAX and a bunch of print statements that I'm currently trying to do in XSLT. Conversely, I could do much more in Perl by using Perl's data structures and functions, without loosing the benefit of content separated from formatting since my data would still be in XML.

This led me to start trying to come up with a specific list of benefits of XSLT versus simply making "templates" in Perl, but I could only really think of Perl Pros.


Perl Pros

So I'm trying to wrap my head around why anyone would use XSLT. It just seems crippled compared to more robust languages (if XSLT can be considered a true language since there are no for or while functions, only for-each). I feel like I'm missing something, but I don't know what. What would a good real world example of why you would use XSLT over Perl?

Thank you for your thoughts.
blahblah

In reply to Why XSLT and not just Perl? by blahblah

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