RE: [xml-dev] Which Will Be Released First, the W3C's XQuery Spec or Longhorn?

["Dare Obasanjo" <dareo@microsoft.com>]

>Dare commented that he saw that combination as a detriment to the process, not a benefit.

Please put words in my mouth. I said I don't see any connection between how long it has taken to produce the XQuery spec and the existence of Open Source implementations. Michael Kay has an Open Source implementation of XQuery (Saxon) as does Per Bothner (Qexo) so there already exist multiple Open Source implementations of XQuery which seems to contradict your point. 
 
Sprinkling Open Source pixie dust on a product doesn't suddenly make it more succesful, faster or better. 
 
Also there have been efforts to come up with an XQuery test suite the same way there is a W3C XML Schema test suite. Again my experiences have shown these processes delay the spec not the make it go any faster. However they improve the chances of interoperability. 
 
 
-- 
PITHY WORDS OF WISDOM
If you don't change your direction, you may end up where you were headed. 

________________________________

From: Don Demsak [mailto:donxml@gmail.com]
Sent: Fri 10/15/2004 6:44 AM
To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
Subject: Re: [xml-dev] Which Will Be Released First, the W3C's XQuery Spec or Longhorn?



Liam,

I think you missed the point of the message.  Microsoft is dropping
support for XQuery in the next release of their framework (which will
not ship until mid 2005), even though they have a very good
implementation in the current beta release.  The reason given that it
is very likely that XQuery will not become a recommendation until well
after their release.  My interpretation of that answer is that MS is
doing this strictly due to previous issues MS has had when releasing
components based on specs that are not even a release candidate (see
XSL).

I know it takes time to release quality specs, but I can't seem to
find any valid reason why XQuery is not out of the working draft stage
yet.  Either someone is holding up the process (aka politics) and/or
the process is broke.  Since I don't like to point out a problem
without trying to come up with a solution, I mentioned the idea I had
on a more concrete relationship between standards org and an open
source community.  Dare commented that he saw that combination as a
detriment to the process, not a benefit.

Your comment "We actually want people to be able to implement our specs from
the specifications, rather than by telephoning the authors of the
specifications... as a result, it's very encouraging to see a number
of implementations (both open source and closed) from "outsiders", and
to see already a good degree of interoperability, although I should
stress we've not yet defined what it means to be conformant, nor been
able to release a test suite beyond the sample use cases."  is exactly
the crux of the problem I was trying to solve.  In a nutshell Test
Driven Development for Standards Organizations.  The way I see it, the
standards org is the "business owner", and the open source team can
work as the "development team".  The end result is a bunch of test
cases that anyone can run to see if their product is conformant, and
we have at least 2 open source versions of the standard that is ready
to go the minute the spec becomes a rec.

Don Demsak

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