J
Jonathan Revusky
Greetings,
A new preview release of FreeMarker 2.3 is available. FreeMarker 2.3
introduces some powerful new XML processing functionality that should
make it an appealing alternative to XSLT for many people. We have
introduced some new directives -- <#visit> and <#recurse> -- that
provide functionality roughly equivalent to the
<xsl:apply-templates/> functionality.
For those who do not know, FreeMarker is a 100% java library of some
vintage. It was originally designed for the java servlet space, to
keep presentation logic (HTML stuff) separate from the back-end
application logic. However, it is a
very useful tool for any application that needs to generate text.
Other well-known tools in this space are Velocity and WebMacro.
We believe that FreeMarker will be a lot easier for most people to
learn and use than XSLT. The basic programming language available in
FreeMarker templates is much more readable (less verbose) than XSLT
and the underlying procedural logic will come more naturally to most
people than the declarative/functional programming model embodied by
XSLT.
We don't have rigorous benchmarks ('rigorous benchmarks' may be an
oxymoron anyway) but initial indications are that FreeMarker is a lot
faster than XSLT. And I mean *a lot* faster. For example, FreeMarker's
manual is maintained in a canonical Docbook XML format. Previously, we
generated the final HTML output using using some XSLT stylesheets by
Norman Walsh. The XSLT transformation was rewritten in FreeMarker, and
runs 15x faster than the previous XSLT-based system using Saxon. Also,
the FreeMarker templates are less verbose and seem more maintainable
than the XSLT stuff was. You can see the FM-generated FM manual here:
http://freemarker.org/docs/index.html and the chapter specifically on
using the tool for XML processing is here:
http://freemarker.org/docs/xgui.html
Though the latest version is still labelled a preview, the codebase is
really quite solid at this point. The main reason for the preview
label is that we are still more open at this stage to changes and
proposals than we would be if this were labeled release candidate or
final. We are *very* interested in feedback from hard-core XML and
XSLT type people. This is your chance to have some input into how an
XML transformation tool should work. (I suppose most of you never got
any input into how XSLT works.
)
Best Regards,
Jonathan Revusky
A new preview release of FreeMarker 2.3 is available. FreeMarker 2.3
introduces some powerful new XML processing functionality that should
make it an appealing alternative to XSLT for many people. We have
introduced some new directives -- <#visit> and <#recurse> -- that
provide functionality roughly equivalent to the
<xsl:apply-templates/> functionality.
For those who do not know, FreeMarker is a 100% java library of some
vintage. It was originally designed for the java servlet space, to
keep presentation logic (HTML stuff) separate from the back-end
application logic. However, it is a
very useful tool for any application that needs to generate text.
Other well-known tools in this space are Velocity and WebMacro.
We believe that FreeMarker will be a lot easier for most people to
learn and use than XSLT. The basic programming language available in
FreeMarker templates is much more readable (less verbose) than XSLT
and the underlying procedural logic will come more naturally to most
people than the declarative/functional programming model embodied by
XSLT.
We don't have rigorous benchmarks ('rigorous benchmarks' may be an
oxymoron anyway) but initial indications are that FreeMarker is a lot
faster than XSLT. And I mean *a lot* faster. For example, FreeMarker's
manual is maintained in a canonical Docbook XML format. Previously, we
generated the final HTML output using using some XSLT stylesheets by
Norman Walsh. The XSLT transformation was rewritten in FreeMarker, and
runs 15x faster than the previous XSLT-based system using Saxon. Also,
the FreeMarker templates are less verbose and seem more maintainable
than the XSLT stuff was. You can see the FM-generated FM manual here:
http://freemarker.org/docs/index.html and the chapter specifically on
using the tool for XML processing is here:
http://freemarker.org/docs/xgui.html
Though the latest version is still labelled a preview, the codebase is
really quite solid at this point. The main reason for the preview
label is that we are still more open at this stage to changes and
proposals than we would be if this were labeled release candidate or
final. We are *very* interested in feedback from hard-core XML and
XSLT type people. This is your chance to have some input into how an
XML transformation tool should work. (I suppose most of you never got
any input into how XSLT works.
)Best Regards,
Jonathan Revusky