Look at the different patterns of usage of XSLT when generating code and/or scripts.

• Cocoon XSP
  • Structured XML language for generating Java code
  • Separates code details (optimisation, API) from applications
  • Modular

• Cocoon Sitemap
  • A little language
  • Create declarative languages for working with procedural code

• Graphotron
  • Separates declarative language from details of implementation
  • Therefore can be used to generate output in a variety of languages
  • Can share common framework

• Schematron
  • XSLT itself may be used as an implementation language; functionally complete
  • "Meta-stylesheets"
  • Tricks for working with these, e.g. adding namespaces

XSP is structured language(?); Graphotron is declarative Sitemap generates Java; Graphotron generates multiple outputs XSP/Graphotron uses 'conventional' language?; Schematron functional

Little Languages can be simpler to understand

XSLT is good as a templating language not only for presentation but also code generation

There are other approaches, e.g. XDoclet which generates code from embedded comments.

There's a potential equivalent in XML: generating code from XML Schema annotations. Probably only useful for validation purposes, although perhaps can type annotation for different languages?

Meta-stylesheets (The Collider) are best way to handle UI templating; other techniques are limited in their capability, e.g. handling recursion cleanly.

Working with meta-stylesheets in Cocoon is something I wrote up on the Cocoon Wiki. It's actually an implementation of the The Collider pattern but I didn't stress that angle there.