Re: [xml-dev] SQL instead of XQuery [offtopic]

["Ken North" <kennorth@sbcglobal.net>]

Noah Mendelsohn wrote:
>> this because Notes was one of the systems that showed that there
>> was a real need for something in addition to relational, even as
>> relational was growing in popularity.

Indeed, SQL vendors themselves saw a need to support complex data types. IBM, 
Informix and Oracle moved from relational to object-relational technology. That 
enabled them to offer user-defined types that can be plugged in as columns in 
SQL statements. IBM released an object-relational version of DB2 ten years ago 
(1997). Informix introduced sophisticated technology that provided the 
capability of supporting user-defined types by plugging in custom access methods 
and indexing schemes.

That migration from relational to object-relational set the stage for being able 
to support XML with an SQL DBMS. The SQL products people knew in the '80s is 
quite different from technology today, which supports functions for XML 
processing and an XML type. And SQL engines have been upgraded to store XML.

For example, the Informix acquisition brought to IBM the team that had 
implemented the XML support for the Informix server. They developed the hybrid 
storage technology in DB2 9.

The leading SQL platforms are like a Swiss Army Knife, with a blade for 
supporting XML, XPath and XQuery.






======== Ken North ===========
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