Re: [xml-dev] functional databases noodling ...

[daniela florescu <dflorescu@mac.com>]

>> 
> The functional database system that impressed me the most was IRIS:
> 
> http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/90/HPL-90-108.pdf

I believe that IRIS is just a sort of a rip-off from the O2 object oriented database,
which was a good commercial object oriented database, that went down the toilet
together with the rest of OO database stuff in the 90ties.

O2 had a pure fully functional query/programming/whatever-name interface language to it,
called OQL, and standardized by ODMG.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_Query_Language

I am always surprised to realize how so few people realize the STRONG influence that OQL had on the
design of XQuery, and consequently how much OQL query processing influenced the state of the art in
XML/XSLT/XQuery processing.

 Almost all database side original designers participating to XQuery (Michael Rys,
Mary Fernandez, Phil Wadler, Jerome Simeon, Sihem Amer, myself, etc) we were all "educated" during 
the shining time of OQL.

Hence, no surprise that XQuery looks just like OQL,  mixed with angle brackets :-)

Best regards
Dana