Proudly Owning Michael Kay's XSLT 2.0 4th Ed.

I am now the proud owner of Michael Kay's XSLT 2.0 4th Edition, just released and flown to me down the friendly Amazon. Excellent! :-)

I've been using XSLT for a couple of years now and I have become committed to using XML, XSLT, XML Schema and XQuery in all my future information projects.

I do all my own science and technical writing in the context of the "memeio project" which I am gradually building up ([re]writing) in these technologies as I need new functionality and explore new ideas. It has turned into quite a powerful tool, built on top of the exist-db native xml database as it now is. I haven't had to write a line of SQL in those two years.

I am also a big fan of the excellent work that is being done with the Oxygen XML Editor, which is really maturing into a fine tool for work with these technologies. A new mode was added recently in version 9 that allows a more WYSIWYG view. It has left me much impressed because I have been able to give it to my non-techy writing assistant and she has been most productive with it and "memeio" in a current project.

With all these things coming together we are due something of a surge ahead in the XML community I believe, with excellent tools like those above becoming widely available and all kinds of new applications possible.