Any big sites using Client Side XSLT?

Question

Lately, I've been pondering the somewhat non-mainstream architecture of building raw XML on the server side, and then using an XSLT stylesheet on the client to transform the XML into the full UI. Of course, a fallback mechanism would have to exist if the client was not capable of client side XSLT, in which case we'd just transform it for them on the server side.

I'm already intimately familiar with XSLT, and this approach seems to be a clean separation of presentation and content, completely forcing the data into XML, and using XSLT for presentation.

I'm also aware that this does add an extra layer of complexity to the application, which is just another moving part that can fail.

My question is: are there any big name or big traffic sites using this approach, and if so: what limitations/lessons learned did you take away from it?

Thanks Internet, Zach

Answer 1

I may be biased when I say this, but working on a web based app that does this, I hate it. The only reason it is even viable is because the clients are only IE6+. Even then, there are issues with it. I find XSLT to be very difficult and would suggest if you are going to do this to get a good tool for debugging and editing XSLT. Why not use JSON and jquery? Must more standard and less client side variability.