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On Fri, 28 Mar 2003 10:25:37 -0500, Jonathan Robie
<jonathan.robie@datadirect-technologies.com> wrote:
> Data is hard for programmers.
Not wanting to open up too big a can of worms, but perhaps data is hard for
*OO* programmers, since the principle of encapsulating data behind accessor
methods has been promoted for a decade or so now. Geezers who learned that
Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs shouldn't have a problem with
labelled trees, or text patterns in strings, or whatever. <duck>
>
> 1. Tim notes that SQL isn't used for business logic, and asks why XQuery
> should be different. Well, as Tim points out, you can't implement any
> serious business logic in SQL. You can in XQuery. I think that makes a
> difference.
Not wanting to open up another can of worms (and someone correct me if I'm
wrong, because I don't have much recent concrete experience with SQL), but
this is only true of *standard* SQL, which few actually use. Aren't most
"SQL" programs written using either SQL extensions to a programming
language or development environment (e.g. ADO, JDO), or things like PL/SQL
that extend SQL to be real programmming languages?
> 2. Tim says that there is no one data model for XML, and without a data
> model you can't have a language.
I gotta agree with Jonathan here and not Tim -- the differences among the
DOM, Infoset, XPath 1/XSLT 1, XPath 2 /XSLT 2 / Xquery data models are
annoying, but much smaller than their similarities. The differences are
also mainly in the realm of the cruft that spawns a bazillion permathreads
(most notably namespaces and "syntax sugar"), and not the elements /
attributes / unicode text core that Tim focused on in his defense against
the unwashed masses chanting "XML Sucks" on Slashdot :-)
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