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   Re: [xml-dev] What niche is XQuery targeting?

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My guess is that the reason why XQuery hasn't yet taken the world by 
storm is that it hasn't overwhelmingly made its case as to why it's 
better than XSLT.  XSLT has been out there for a while, and has gone 
through its rounds of refining the tools that back it up.  It may also 
be somewhat confusing to the world why the same body pushes two 
different languages for doing pretty much the same thing.  Some of us 
know why, but most of us, searching for a solution to our problems at 
hand, will undoubtedly find the number of specifications and choices 
daunting.

This has always been a problem with the XML Query activities at the W3C. 
  It's probably complicated more by the looooooooooooooooooong process 
of getting the final specifications out, and the perception by the world 
at large that those specifications never seem to be 'quite finished'.

Personally, I like the declarative model, but the vast majority of 
developers don't, which leaves me bewildered as to why XSLT still 
remains more popular than XQuery.  Maybe it's just a matter of properly 
marketing the two solutions to their target audiences instead of making 
them available as a mish mosh of bloatage, and hoping that the consumer 
will be able to sort it all out for themselves?

--
Tom Bradford - Virtuoso Technology Evangelist
OpenLink Software: http://www.openlinksw.com/
Personal Web Log:  http://www.tbradford.org/


Tim Bray wrote:
> On Dec 9, 2004, at 10:49 PM, Daniela Florescu wrote:
> 
>>> No, for XQuery that's not obvious it all.
>>
>>
>> !?
>>
>> It might not be obvious to you, but that was definitively clear for
>> my previous employer (BEA Systems) and more importantly
>> it is clear for my current employer (Oracle Corporation).
> 
> 
> Lots of things that big companies think are important turn out to be 
> disappointing.  Your current employer, if I recall correctly, was at one 
> point telling the world that video-on-demand was the key application on 
> the "Information Superhighway", and has repeatedly decreed that the time 
> for Network Computers had come.  And Oracle isn't especially stupid, 
> it's just that sometimes big-company bets are wrong.  Think of OSI 
> networking, Ada, the Fifth Generation project, Blackbird, Bob, and so on 
> and so on.
> 
> XQuery will be a success when people start using it in large numbers 
> because it solves their problems.  Which could very well happen, but, as 
> I said, it's not "obvious".  -Tim




 

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