  In today's world of Web application development, programmers are commonly
called upon to use the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) as a programming
language, something for which it was never intended and for which it is
woefully inadequate. HTML is a data language, nothing more. It lacks high level
programming constructions like procedures, conditions, and loops. Moreover it
provides no intrinsic mechanism to insert or associate dynamic application
data. Lastly, despite the visibly apparent structure of a web page when viewed
in a browser, the responsible HTML code bears little to no discernible
corresponding structure, making it very difficult to read, augment, and
maintain.
  This paper examines the various drawbacks inherent in HTML when used in Web
development and examines the various augmenting technologies available in the
industry today and their drawbacks. It then proposes an alternative, complete
with the necessary constructs, structure, and data associating facilities based
upon server-side, Extensible Stylesheet Language Transforms (XSLT). This
alternative approach gives rise to an entirely new, higher level, markup
language that can be readily used in web development.
