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0. I don't quite understand what you're talking about,
because I thought that XPath 2.0 WD does not
exist.
http://www.w3c.org/TR/xpath points to
XPath v 1.0 Rec and contains zero pointers
to XPath 2.0 materials.
I'm wondering, is that on purpose?
I mean that if going by 'XPath' link from w3c.org
main page, nobody could guess that there is any
work on XPath 2.0.
If going by "XSL" link, it will bring
http://www.w3c.org/Style/XSL/
and that page has a pointer to
http://www.w3c.org/TR/xpath20req
Am I right that when talking about XPath 2.0 WD
you're talking about
http://www.w3.org/TR/xquery-operators/
http://www.w3.org/TR/query-datamodel/
http://www.w3c.org/TR/xpath20req
If you have some other URL, related to
XPath v 2.0 WD, I'd appreciate if you share it.
As to your question , which is, from my point of view
"does it make sense to have XPath and XQuery doing
the same stuff?" , I should make 2 points:
1. This situation is the exact copy of the situation
we had (have) with XSL FO and CSS
(both kinda 'do the same' and I should stress
out that I'm talking about the XSL FO, not
about the XSLT or XSL! ). Correct
me if I'm wrong, but my impression is that
in that situation ( and probably in the situation
with XQuery / XPath) we had (have) 2 big camps,
each pushing their own solution, occasionally
'synchronizing' their designs to some degree.
XSL FO and CSS got synchronized at some point
in exactly the way XPath 2.0 is synchronized with
XQuery. 'Synchronization without refactoring' is a
style of W3C. Those, who write code for living,
should have their opinion on this style.
2. I don't really know if in the 'conflict'
between XQuery and XPath one or another
'branch' has any 'right to exist', because
I think that those two big guys would
join XSL FO / CSS guys on their way
to nowhere.
Now some ... of course - questionable ... idea
and maybe it is just a wrong idea, ... but whatever ...
I think that what they've done to XPath 2.0 would result
in slow and cumbersome engines that would be possibly
implemented only by a few big companies and because
XPath 2.0 requirements document (still) has no word
'update' in it, XPath alternatives would emerge next years.
I believe that XPath has to be refactored (current 'XPath'
is better to be called 'XSelect' ) and I'm working
on that right now.
Those, who are interested in re-designing XPath so that
it may become really 'XPath' ( The Path in The 'XML Three' ),
not the interpreter for string operations or god-knows-what
they-will-put-in-it-in-version-3 are welcome to write me.
Or we can discuss the possible XPath alternatives on this list,
if that would not be offtopic.
I'm talking about some things like :
/some/path[condition]/(this-is-the-nodeset-i-want-to-get)/child[condition]
Like it is in perl regular expressions.
The idea is that instead of migrating some parts of Perl or Java into
XPath interpreter, one should give the clean and convinient API
to transfer Chunks of XML ( Nodes, whatever ) to/from XPath
interpreter, so that people can use their existing languages, not
learning the cumbersome ones.
'Binding is the king'. Perl + DBI / DBD beats any 4GL language
e t.c. I see not a sign of this view in W3C WDs, just more
magic words to learn every day.
Now about the refactoring.
Well ... it is good that some individuals at W3C are now suggesting
some refactoring of XML, such as throwing out the DTDs.
If even refactoring of a holy cow of XML 1.0 is now
considered a 'politically correct' statement, I should say
that refactoring of XPath looks kinda .. unavoidable ...
Current XPath was plain 'XSelect', because XSLT had no
need in updates. Now they're 'fixing' XPath with placing more
and more functionality into this ill-designed thing. Talk about
the 'qwerty' keyboard.
And you're now asking is it sane to have XQuery and
XPath and XPointer. Of course it is not, it all should be
refactored ( and it will be refactored, it will just take a
long time ).
Sure, I got something wrong and maybe I've made
some politically incorrect statements again, but perhaps
the very same statements would become politically
correct after some time, so I don't really know if
I should apologize for something I've said above.
Rgds.Paul.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe English" <jenglish@flightlab.com>
>
> Now that XPath 2.0 has been expanded to include most of the
> features of XQuery (with the rest already in XSLT), is
> a separate query language really needed anymore?
> Will anybody ever be able to implement XPointer now?
>
> But seriously, the new XPath and XSLT drafts look good
> to me at first glance (everything on my wish list made
> it in :-). Looks like I've got some reading to do...
>
>
> --Joe English
>
> jenglish@flightlab.com
>
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