Re: Xquery might have some things right

"Christopher Browne" <cbbrowne_at_acm.org> wrote in message news:c23lje$1o07nm$1_at_ID-125932.news.uni-berlin.de...
> In the last exciting episode, "Dawn M. Wolthuis" <dwolt_at_tincat-group.com>
wrote:
> > 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.
>
> The deficiencies surely look like they are more enormous than any
> _conceivable_ merits.

Yes, but it does have to walk before running -- it is an emerging standard still being brought to life.

>
> - If Microsoft is promoting it that can't conceivably be a good thing.

You would normally see me nodding in agreement, however, replacing ODBC (JDBC, OLE/DB) with a standard means of querying data that doesn't require SQL in the mix will require Microsoft's backing (money talks and all).

>
> That's actually a really useful property; "Microsoft Inside" is a
> terrific warning label.

Major agreement from me.

> - It uses XML, the only thing that could have been worse than SGML,
> which was a text parsing system designed by people that didn't want
> to understand the theory of language parsers.

Again, complete agreement.

>
> - It depends on "success" in the shifting sands that are the
> foundation for XML "standards." Just look at the set of "standards"
> being published under the auspices of the W3C.

Definitely. And it was the foolish man who built his house upon the sand. I think the rule of thumb with software development tools & standards is to use something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue. My current choices in these categories are PICK, Jini, the JVM (borrowed-ish from Wirth's p-machine) and BlueJ (editor for writing Java code).

>
> Looks like a futile boondoggle to me...

You don't see a reasonable, though unbearably slow, progression from data exchange:
1. by putting data in "card columns" then virtual card columns distributed on mag tape
2. then ftp'ing or e-mailing comma-quote files 3. to now including the metadata for the data within the document itself

It is a small step, but one that will make a significant contribution to software application integration, methinks. Cheers! --dawn Received on Wed Mar 03 2004 - 05:27:10 CET