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Re: XSLT and XQuery (Off-list)

• To: ziggy@p...
• Subject: Re: XSLT and XQuery (Off-list)
• From: "Peter J. Gale" <thesemanticweb@y...>
• Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 12:27:27 +0000 (GMT)
• Cc: xml-dev@l...
• In-reply-to: <20020107174630.GC7146@p...>

Hello Adam,

Please forgive me for writing cold and off-list.

Your comments intrigue me and interest me as to what
are your views as to a way forward.

I am working on an alternative approach to a Semantic
Web based on a universal homogeneous database
consisting of a singel table of three columns only,
which I believe is capable of storing all
assertions/facts/rules in rich levels of detail.

Because of the universal structure, I believe that
standard database indexing functionality will be easy
to implement and that interoperability is relatively
trivial.

Thus will further benefit from a system of Global
Unique Identifiers which will allow different end
users to be certain that they are referring to the
same precise concepts regardless of who or where they
are.

Sound too simple to be true? It does to me!

This project is in its early stages but should be
"adoptable and implementable" by those (unlike myself)
with appropriate skills.

I am seeking active collaboration from suitable people
willing to participate in an "unorthodox" approach.

Would you like me to explain more?


Peter
York, England

 --- Adam Turoff <ziggy@p...> wrote: > On Mon,
Jan 07, 2002 at 12:18:53PM -0500, Mike
> Champion wrote:
> > 1/7/2002 11:03:57 AM, Adam Turoff
> <ziggy@p...> wrote:
> > >> Unifying the remaining 
> > >> portion of XQuery and all of XSLT would
> certainly take a significant amount 
> > >> of time -- I would estimate it as at least an
> additional year. 
> > >
> > >It sounds like that would be time wisely spent. 
> I find it less
> > >important to get XQuery 1.0 out the door
> "quickly", and more
> > >important that XQuery 1.0 is substantially
> similar to the XQuery
> > >that will be in use in five-to-ten years' time, 
> > 
> > For what it's worth, I agree.  BUT we have this
> little problem
> > that expectations have been raised, XML is near
> the "peak of inflated
> > expectations" in the hype cycle, and the pundits
> are starting to
> > smell blood in the water.  
> 
> There is little that is newsworthy in that
> statement.  This describes
> the state of XML in the media pretty much since its
> initial release.
> I fail to see how this current wave of hype is
> greater or more
> meaninful than the previous three years' worth of
> (accumulated)
> hype.  :-)
>  
> > The folks who pay the bills seldom give us enough
> time to "do
> > the right thing."  There's a Frequently Quoted
> Maxim from Voltaire
> > that "the best is the enemy of the good."  How can
> we get the good
> > and the best to kiss and make up with respect to
> XPath/XSLT/XQuery?
> 
> With all due respect to Jon Bosak, Tim Bray, James
> Clark and the 
> other lumiaries who brought us here, I would hardly
> say that anything
> in the world of XML qualifies as "the best"
> anything.  XML 1.0 had
> serious deficiencies that aren't (yet) being
> addressed with XML 2.0;
> XSLT 1.0 hit a 80/20 sweet spot and failed to
> deliver some serious
> function points: user-defined functions, coersion of
> a result tree
> into a node-set, etc.
> 
> These are *hard* problems to solve.  All of them.
> 
> That said, XML and XSLT aren't necessarily *bad*,
> just good enough
> (and imperfect).  If XQuery could hit that same
> sweet spot, it too
> would be good enough; as it stands, it is at odds
> with much of the
> rest of the XML foundation technologies and
> generally missing the
> mark in some areas.
> 
> It is my ardent hope that XQuery does not suffer the
> same fate as
> RDF, XLink and XSchema; years after its completion
> RDF is still
> befuddling and stagnant (although that is being
> addressed), and
> XSchema is so large, confusing and intimidating that
> it will be a
> very long time before we see it's widespread
> adoption.  
> 
> Perhaps what this world really needs (and wants) is
> for XQuery to be
> adopted by the W3C so that it spurs independant
> developers to create
> a simpler, competing query language that is actually
> adoptable and
> implementable.  That sounds like a fairly oblique
> way to create 
> technologies to "enhance the interoperability of the
> World Wide Web"...
> 
> Z.
> 
> 
>
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  • Re: XSLT and XQuery
    • From: Adam Turoff <ziggy@p...>

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