Re: XML extensions to SQL

"Richard Wheeldon" <richard_at_rswheeldon.com> wrote in message news:3EA04B14.1CFB_at_rswheeldon.com...
> I suggest you take a look at the papers by Eisenberg and Melton
> in Sigmod Record, if you want a quick overview to the progress.
> Iirc, there are representatives from both Microsoft and Oracle
> on the committee, so it's quite likely it'll be implemented
> in one form or another,

In general, this document is like an official statement from the goverment: for non-politically correct thoughts please look elsewhere.

Compare this

<quote>
"One of the most intriguing and urgent

requirements to arise from the appearance of

XML is a well-defined relationship between

XML and SQL. "

</quote>

to Hugh Darwen on the so-called "XML query algebra": "Now, my eyes light up at the word "algebra" ... Originally, I understood it to mean a set of operations that are closed over some type. That is, every operation in X Algebra operates on zero or more values of type X and returns a value of type X. Hence, set algebra, Boolean algebra, relational algebra and the algebra of numbers that gives us arithmetic. Over what is the XML Query Algebra closed? Nobody has ever given me an answer that makes sense (apart from the occasional, honest "I don't know")."

How can they derive any "well-defined" relationship between one model which is algebraically closed and the other one, which isn't? Next, do SQL users really want adding XML mess into already messy language? Received on Fri Apr 18 2003 - 22:41:49 CEST