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RE: XQuery -- Reinventing the Wheel?

• From: Jonathan.Robie@S...
• To: uche.ogbuji@f..., mrys@m...
• Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 12:01:19 -0500

Uche Ogbuji wrote:

> Are we all forgetting how long it took the first
> relational databases to achieve decent performance? 
> I still remember the tremendous fanfare generated
> by (pre-Microsoft) FoxPro's "Rushmore" technology, the sort of
> thing which is considered quotidian these days.
>
> I still need to hear these pressing arguments that
> XSLT is *fundamentally* incapable for large-scale query.
> The state of first-generation implemenations is no argument. 
> There will also be a first generation of XQuery engines.

I think that it is clear that (1) some languages are either to optimize than others, and (2) adding optimization to a language after it is completed is harder than building it in from the beginning.

I agree that the first generation of XQuery engines will not be well-optimized for all operations, but that's no excuse for failing to think about optimizability while designing the language.

Incidentally, let me be clear that I mean "optimizable" for queries over large repositories. XSLT is definitely optimizable for the purposes for which it was designed. XQuery was designed for different purposes.

> Don't get me wrong either.  I'm not categorically saying XQuery is
> otiose. I'm just looking for the compelling impetus not to build it
> within the XSLT framework.

Be my guest. Nobody is stopping anybody from developing a query language that is an extension of XSLT syntax. This is not the approach that XQuery is taking, but I doubt you are claiming that using XSLT syntax is the only reasonable way to design a query language for XML.

Jonathan

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