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Closure Templates vs XSLT in-browser implementation

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When comparing Closure Templates vs XSLT in-browser implementation, the Slant community recommends Closure Templates for most people. In the question“What are the best JavaScript templating engines?” Closure Templates is ranked 19th while XSLT in-browser implementation is ranked 31st. The most important reason people chose Closure Templates is:

The same template written in Closure would work both on Java as well as javascript.

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Common Questions

What are the best JavaScript templating engines?

Closure Templates

XSLT in-browser implementation

Pros

Pro
Language independent

The same template written in Closure would work both on Java as well as javascript.

Pro
Well Tested and used by Gmail and Google Docs

Closure Templates being a project created by Google, is extensively used in some of the world's most famous and largest web apps which include Gmail and Google Docs. What this means for you is that you'll be using a Template engine that has not only been intensively tested but also that you'll be in good company, with lots of technical support.

Pro
Secure

Closure has been designed keeping most security risks in mind. Templates created using Closure are auto-escaped automatically. Hence you won't have to worry about any XSS attacks.

Pro
High Performance

Closure templates do not tend to slow down your site's performance or increase your page load time. They're compiled to extremely efficient JS code so that your page renders extremely fast, whether the templating is done on the client end or the server end.

Pro
Permits pipelining

I.e. apply one template on top of another.

Pro
AOP model

With ability to split feature implementation apart from main codebase, development became quite more manageable. Example: for data of particular type you could define own rendering or render refine rules; pipelining allows incrementally change UI by adding/removing elements depend of parameters, data values, previously rendered content.

Pro
Native multithreaded implementation

Only template engine which utilizes multithreading.

Pro
Native pre-compilation available

In some browsers(IE) XSLT during load is compiled into DLL. In others pre-loaded template allows to skip recurring parsing .

Pro
Accept native data out of JS heap

XML when stored, saved outside of JS heap, capable to work with amount of data 100x larger of JSON.

Pro
Native implementation

Supported in all browsers, starting from IE5.

Pro
Server side rendering

XSLT is available as in browser as on server side via various libs including highly optimized for CPU.

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Cons

Con
Hard to find what you need in documentation

Docs are pretty, but hard to find exactly what you need. Although language has nice macros, you're going to hate them when they fail and you search for info for half an hour.

Con
Strange errors from compiler

You won't get used to them even after a while.

Con
Not widely used outside of Google

Closure Templates are mostly used in projects developed by Google and not in projects by third-parties. As such, it's unlikely for further versions to be released or for changes to be merged.

Con
Lack of SDLC for in-browser development

It will take time to collect complete gentleman set: debugging, modular development, documenting, unit tests, etc. Please share if know the book on subject.