RE: XQuery -- Reinventing the Wheel?

["Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>]

Scripted languages using the pointy bracket 
syntax have been implemented several times.  It 
works fine (US Navy MID), but it is unwieldy 
and tends to shock the monkey (the Desperate 
C Programmer).

I don't believe the languages cited are on a collision course 
unless folks get out there and actively push 
them toward each other.  That might be a good 
thing, but I have to agree with Jonathan:  I 
can see valid reasons for XQuery.  As in the 
example above, getting the relational programmers 
to go with pure XSLT and XPath isn't easy.  
Anything that takes the awkward, syntax-crazy 
ASP page sytagm and gives it a smoother 
appearance will be useful (we go mad just 
balancing the quotation marks as we build 
up the SQL strings).  If the effort 
does create a convergence in the infoset 
abstractions, that helps certainly.

There is signficant overlap.  What may be 
at issue is the "significance" and that 
is likely to vary between those who 
must code in the language and those who 
must implement the code of the language. 

Len 
http://www.mp3.com/LenBullard

Ekam sat.h, Vipraah bahudhaa vadanti.
Daamyata. Datta. Dayadhvam.h


-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Miller [mailto:brian_n_miller@yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2001 12:10 PM
To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
Subject: RE: XQuery -- Reinventing the Wheel?


Jonathan.Robie@SoftwareAG-USA.com wrote:
> 
> There's been no great rush to create an XML syntax 
> for Java, JavaScript, Visual Basic, or other high 
> level programming languages.  Several people have 
> attempted to make XML syntaxes for SQL, but I have 
> not been impressed by the results.

Encoding any programming language in XML should be
trivial.  I would just tweek some yacc-like parser to 
emit elements.  Surely someone has already done this.

> XQuery's FLWR expressions are quite similar to SQL's
> SELECT/FROM/WHERE.  It may make sense, incidentally,
> to add these to XSLT as well.

XSLT, XQuery, and XPath are on a collision course.  
Perhaps they can eventually fuse into one XML
manipulation language.