For a project I’m working on, a list of XSLT resources:

• Microsoft’s XML Downloads page, including a pointer to msxsl.exe, the command line transformation utility
• NXSLT - open source .NET based XSLT command line utility
• XML.com’s What Is XSLT - beginner tutorial
• XML and XSLT Resource List from the National Library of Medicine
• Skew.org’s XML and XSLT links page
• An old links page at Berkeley lists some resources for debugging and tracing XSLT
• Mark McLaren’s XSLT resources for beginners
• And of course the W3C pages on XSL

An interesting point is that all of these pages are old, some dating back to 2001—yet they are in the top of the Google results. Is XSLT a dead technology?

The Boston Globe writes about the newest competitive threat to Starbucks: the McCafe. The problem with shifting your product mix from premium coffees to candy milk drinks isn’t just that you lose your soul in the process. It’s that it is so much easier for other players to imitate you and horn in on your turf.

Because, really, could you imagine Dunkin and McDonalds imitating really good high quality coffee? But it’s really easy for them to steam some milk, dump in some flavored corn syrup, and call it a latté.

Howard Schultz is right: once you take that first step, it’s a long slippery slope down to slinging fast food with everyone else.