Re: XQuery -- Reinventing the Wheel?

[Jonathan Robie <Jonathan.Robie@SoftwareAG-USA.com>]

At 07:35 AM 2/26/2001 -0700, Uche Ogbuji wrote:

> > IMHO, the current XQuery spec. tries to much: it wants to select
> > _and_ transform, although selection would be enough. If I like to
> > transform the query results I use XSLT. This way XSLT and XQuery
> > would have a clear scope: One for transformation and the other for
> > selection.
>
>This is, I think, an important take on the discussion.  I think most of
>the pro-XQuery arguments (excepting the syntactical arguments, which I
>think are s much less important) point to efficiency of selection.
>
>So would there be anyproblem with making XQuery a super-selector for XSLT?
>That way the result-tree mechanism could be re-used, and there could be
>crucial clarity in exactly how XQuery builds on XPath.

I think that almost all of XQuery, with the exception of element 
construction, is plausible for use in XPath, which would make it common 
between XQuery and XSLT. Element construction is a small part of the 
language, and very convenient for writing short queries.

>If XSLT got, in addition to its current path selection, the ability to
>crunch cartesian products of information element containers, along with a
>lazy-evaluation scheme that allowed for efficient handling of interim
>results, wouldn't this address both camps' concerns?

Yes.

>BTW, thanks to Jonathan Robie for his reasoned and patient arguments.
>I've not come all his way yet, but I've learned much and amended some of
>my views on the matter.

Thanks!  I will sometimes drop out of the conversation for a few days or a 
week, but I'll be in and out on an ongoing basis.

Jonathan