Re: Xquery might have some things right

"Dawn M. Wolthuis" <dwolt_at_tincat-group.com> wrote in message news:<c24v9j$j21$1_at_news.netins.net>...
> "Tony" <andrewst_at_onetel.net.uk> wrote in message
> news:c0e3f26e.0403030402.2510647b_at_posting.google.com...
> > "Dawn M. Wolthuis" <dwolt_at_tincat-group.com> wrote in message
> news:<c23ic9$usb$1_at_news.netins.net>...
> > > Are there XQuery fans on this list? --dawn
> >
> > Not many, but it does not surprise me that you are one of them.
>
> You didn't read very well. I have more often critcized XQuery than
> applauded it and it is only in the last week that I decided to learn it
> better so that any criticisms had more knowledge at the base. It is then
> that I found a few gems and thought I'd pass them along.

You are correct: I have missed the posts where you criticise XQuery, sorry.

> > Look:
> > a procedural way of querying a hierarchic database. What a great leap
> > forward!
>
> Ah, blinded by glasses you have been wearing for, perhaps, too long? You
> should rather think of it as a means of navigating di-graphs of data.

And that would be better because...? I don't want to "navigate" through the data, since I know a better way: define the sets of data I want, and leave the DBMS to "navigate" however it decides is optimal. Why should *I* have to do all the work?

> When both the data model and the data operators are represented as functions
> (which, by definition are relations), there are some gains we can make.
> Think of all of the work to be done in terms of
>
> function(input)=output
>
> If we represent all input and output as functions (such as
> ObjectFunction(referenceID) = objectdata), then there is only one type of
> data (for storage purposes, for example) -- FUNCTIONS! That's it -- you
> apply one function to another until you get the function to store or output
> in some other way.

Sounds like LISP (which I quite liked in a quirky sort of way at one time). However, relational databases only have one type of data too - relations!
And SQL databases (not really the same thing, as I'm sure you are only too aware by now) have only tables - if you ignore some of the egregious OO "extensions". Received on Wed Mar 03 2004 - 22:35:47 CET