Re: Xquery might have some things right

"Peter Koch Larsen" <pklspam_at_mailme.dk> wrote in message news:9812c.104711$jf4.6292118_at_news000.worldonline.dk...
>
> "Dawn M. Wolthuis" <dwolt_at_tincat-group.com> skrev i en meddelelse
> news:c23ic9$usb$1_at_news.netins.net...
> > My current interests related to software application development and the
> > tools employed for such are aimed in two primary directions -- databases
> and
> > distributed computing. XML plays in both of these categories. In
> > discussions related to both topics, there is a lot of lashing out
against
> > XML as being a stupid approach to whatever it is it might be
approaching.
> > Marshall answered a recent post by indicating he is not a fan of XML,
for
> > example. I, too, have been know to state opinions about how it is not
> > terribly important that persisted objects of any type (thought I'd toss
in
> > some OO terminology just to mess with a few of you) be human-readable in
> > their persistent state. I don't have to be able to look directly at a
CD
> > and hear the music either.
> >
> > BUT, XML does have some things going for it, not the least of which is
> that
> > it is our best bet yet for freeing ourselves of SQL -- a language with
> which
> > I have a love-hate relationship, but which is ready for retirement, in
my
> > opinion. XQuery, the emerging standard where Microsoft seems to be
> putting
> > their money, is something I have referred to as a "dog-ugly language"
> > (although many dogs are cute) but it has some significant advances over
> SQL.
> > I decided it was time to learn the language a bit more and foudn that it
> > does employ a 2 valued logic (THANK GOODNESS!) as well as the obviously
> > superior approach to nested data (multivalues) compared to the RDBMS's I
> > have seen.
> >
> > Additionally, along with the data modeling related to a UI, one of the
big
> > areas ripe for database theorists to join web folks is data modeling as
it
> > relates to data searching. We think of search engines for
semi-structured
> > data (such as text documents on the web), but our applications have
often
> > been so restrictive in making users get their search criteria exactly
> right
> > for database searches that we are going to need to adjust to more of a
> > google approach at some point. We need to look at how a user will find
a
> > person, for example, when they recall that the word "green" is somewhere
> in
> > that person's demographic data (was it their eyes or the street they
live
> on
> > or city they are from or one of their children or the company for which
> they
> > work?) We tend to force users to know the attribute (at least the type)
> > they are searching along with any partial or full values for that type.
I
> > suspect that XML will play a role in the area of database search
engines.
> >
> > And ... XML is NOT based on relational data modeling theories (another
> thank
> > goodness from me ;-).
> >
> > There is one huge deficiency (OK, more than one, but one I'll point out)
> > with XQuery compared to SQL -- XQuery is a read-only language at this
> point,
> > although update standards are being addressed.
> >
> > So, although XML is seen as an enemy "technology" to some database
> > specialists and also to some distributed computing specialists, it is
> > bringing with it some good news. [and, besides, for data exchange --
the
> > best use of XML -- it was time to move on from comma-quote files anyway,
> > right?]
> >
> > Are there XQuery fans on this list? --dawn
> >
> >
> Well Dawn... reading the above, I seem to find two advantages of XML as
> compared to SQL.
> 1) it is our best bet yet for freeing ourselves of SQL.
> This is highly subjective. Where is the value?
> 2) XML is NOT based on relational data modeling theories.
> You really should mention the deficiencies of relational modeling.
>
> All in all, quite an empty post for so much text.

It goes with the brain that created it. Received on Wed Mar 10 2004 - 03:37:02 CET