Re: XQuery (and XML) vs LISP
From: Jan Hidders <jan.hidders_at_REMOVETHIS.pandora.be>
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 21:00:10 GMT
Message-ID: <uzwBf.202606$bU4.6928482_at_phobos.telenet-ops.be>
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 21:00:10 GMT
Message-ID: <uzwBf.202606$bU4.6928482_at_phobos.telenet-ops.be>
beelzebub wrote:
> If XML is a syntactic representation of a typed tree structure and
> XQuery is a language that can process and construct such structures,
> how does the combination compare to LISP (with type information)? It
> seems like
> XML <=> S-Expressions (with types)
> XQuery <=> LISP functions
> Am I missing something here?
Not much, except that XQuery is more designed as an ad-hoc query language than a general programming language. That means that queries that are thought to be typical XML queries can be more succinctly formulated in a more readable way, and the language is designed such that typical database-style query optimization becomes easier than it would be for LISP.
- Jan Hidders