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RE: W3C's five new XQuery/Xpath2 working drafts - Sti ll mis

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: RE: W3C's five new XQuery/Xpath2 working drafts - Sti ll missing Updates
• From: Sean McGrath <sean.mcgrath@p...>
• Date: Wed, 02 Jan 2002 14:24:53 +0000
• In-reply-to: <9A4FC925410C024792B85198DF1E97E4021BDA23@u...>

>[Michael Champion]
>The larger issues that Mike Kay raises are critical: All this committee work
>is for nothing if the result is too complex or expensive to actually use.  I
>am not all that much dumber than the average software developer, I have
>followed the XML world full-time for 5 years now, and this
>schema/PSVI/strongly-typed XQuery stuff makes my head spin.  I can't imagine
>what ordinary developers who don't focus on XML will think of it.
>
>Actually, come to think of it, I can ... it will be C++ and the Windows API
>all over again; few developers go anywhere near it without GUI tools and
>wizards to hide the complexity behind a proprietary front end.

Thus playing right into the hands of those who would make lock us in
to their tools. As data owners, we need to fight this. When really smart
people start talking about needing GUIs to grok what some notation really
*means*, they are wittingly or otherwise heading down the vendor-lockin
fork in the road.

I fully expect to get flamed for that statement but what the heck.
I'm trying to grok some vendor locked in XML at the moment and consequently
I'm not in a very good humour.

XML is two things - a syntax and a spirit. A spirit of open data 
representation. Only
the syntax is mandatory[1].

Sean
http://www.itworld.com/nl/xml_prac/10042001/

• References:
  • RE: W3C's five new XQuery/Xpath2 working drafts - Still missing Updates
    • From: "Champion, Mike" <Mike.Champion@S...>

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