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5/2/2002 11:44:28 PM, Uche Ogbuji <uche.ogbuji@fourthought.com>
wrote:
>
>
> No offence whatsoever to you or the XML Query group,
> but I don't expect > to be using XQuery very much, so XQuery
> integration is the least of my concerns for an XML update
> language.
Why don't you expect to be using XQuery much? Because of some
limitation of the XQuery language? Because you already have the
tools you need in XPath, SAX/DOM, and/or XSLT? Because of the
impedence mismatch between Yet Another Progrqamming Language and the
one you already use?
FWIW, I gave a presentation on XQuery to a user group yesterday, and
preparing for it required me to re-think it from the perspective of
people who are not XML geeks, but people who are being called upon
to work with XML data in their day jobs. I came away with a renewed
appeciation for XQuery's great potential ... if you overlook the
details we argue about here.
The complexity and lack of updates are an indication that the WG
isn't listening to their "customers," I would agree. Nevertheless,
the essential XQuery language -- extended by an update syntax with
or without the W3C's blessing, and with the "type safety" stuff left
to earn its own way in the world irrespective of the W3C's blessing
-- should let us do integrations across document collections and
across products and even storage paradigms, far more easily than we
do now. Even the controversial overlap with XSLT could be a long-
term strength if it allows ordinary SQL-trained developers to do
straightforward XML data reformatting without having to wrap their
heads around the recursive template processing design pattern. I
honestly think that XQuery could do for XML what SQL did for the
relational model -- put a single, general tool into the repertoire
of mainstream developers that gives them a lot of power to deal with
the new approach without having to wrestle with its bizarre details.
So, I'd be very interested to hear from potential *users* of XQuery
(as opposed to those of us defining it, implementing it, or
competing with it). Are you eagerly waiting for it to be real?
Waiting for it to be cooked before you worry about it? Waiting for
XQuery Essentials / XQuery in a Nutshell / XQuery for Dummies before
you even think about it??? Waiting for your favorite product or
tool to implement it before giving it any attention at all?
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