Most web APIs and data feeds are built to consume and produce XML data. RSS, SOAP, REST, ATOM, AJAX, web-services, indeed, even XHTML itself is a form of XML. If you publish anything to the web you’re probably publishing XML in some form or another. Many web developers work with some flavor of XML every day.
However few have heard of XSLT, a standard language adopted by the W3C a decade ago for styling XML data for user consumption. XSLT, or XSL Transform, is a real language, part of XSL, the XML Stylesheet Language. XSLT is a tool for reformatting XML data, literally an XML stylesheet. This powerful language lets you convert XML data into almost any other XML structure you could imagine, including completely valid and functional XHTML.
Simply put, if your web application has been built to produce XML for feeds or APIs, then you do not need to build another set of logic to make a web version. You can let web browsers hit the service, just as you would for feeds or APIs. Just create an XSLT and link it from your XML document. All modern browsers will render the XSLT and display it as a normal web page.
