So the first thing I needed to do was to create XSLTs that did the transformations. Unfortunately, it has been more than a year since I used by XSLT writing skills. The upshot is that I’ve forgotten some major concepts in building XSLT. Hence the “Use it or Lose It” every tech skill that doesn’t get used rusts to the point of being useless. This isn’t just true for me, it is true for almost every techy I’ve met. Its something I struggle with as a techy but also as a manager because I have to make sure I give my staff variety in their work to keep various skills sharp. Since I’m the XML expert I need to make sure that I do enough XML that I can do it easily when it needs doing. Plus I need to get my staff some training in this area so that they can help with this work as well.

As far as the particular thorns with my XML project, I’m struggling with XPath and selecting nodes to display. I remember this being my bane the first time around but after several weeks of work I seemed to get the knack of it and was able to construct transformations with ease. The hard drive that is my brain has erased all the data relating to that experience and I feel like I’m back at square one again.

Trying to comprehend the difference between <apply-templates> and <call template>, as well as the match versus select attributes has given me a massive headache and acid reflux. So tomorrow rather than the trial and error method I’m going to return to contemplate my Wrox XSLT book to see if it might impart some drop of wisdom so that I can make actual progress on this project!