XQuery articles on adtmag.com

[Mike Champion <mc@xegesis.org>]

A couple of contrasting articles on XQuery at adtmag.org:

http://www.adtmag.com/article.asp?id=7620
Uche makes a distinction between two approaches, extending existing 
languages and environments to support XML vs defining a new native XML 
language:
 
" .NET has evolved processing tools ideal for users of Microsoft’s 
development tools. Perl 6 brings sophisticated XML capabilities that take 
advantage of innovations in that language. The same level of innovation is 
at work in the Java and Python communities, among Flash users, as well as 
those on embedded and wireless devices.
 
This diversity of XML processing systems, bound together by XML 1.0 syntax, 
is a step in the right direction. Rather than catchall SAX, DOM and even 
XSLT models that cut across the spectrum of XML developers, XML will become 
a natural accessory for each environment. XQuery represents a counter to 
this trend."

Uche makes a prediction:
 
"XQuery omni-tool ...is complex enough that it is probably not very 
accessible to the weekend handyman, and yet probably not finely tuned 
enough to displace the box of professional crafting tools."

In http://www.adtmag.com/article.asp?id=7649 Jonathan seems to take the 
position, to paraphrase heavily :-) yes, it's a damn good floor wax and a 
very tasty dessert topping too:

'"In many development environments, people have to work with relational 
data, XML and data found in objects. These have three very different data 
models -- three very different ways of representing and manipulating data," 
said Robie. "For XML and relational data, XQuery allows you to work in one 
common model, an XML-based model that can also be used with XML views of 
relational data."'

"Native XML programming is at the heart of XQuery. XML is not object 
oriented, nor is it relational. XQuery is portable, type safe and can be 
optimized for database access. It is ideal for queries that must represent 
results as XML, to query XML stored inside or outside the database, or to 
span relational and XML sources," said Robie.