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RE: RE: XQuery and DTD/Schema?

• To: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>,<xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: RE: RE: XQuery and DTD/Schema?
• From: Jonathan Robie <jonathan.robie@d...>
• Date: Sat, 06 Jul 2002 14:50:18 -0400
• In-reply-to: <4.2.0.58.20020706140620.018a8b28@p...>
• References: <8BD7226E07DDFF49AF5EF4030ACE0B7E06621DA6@r... d.corp.microsoft.com>

At 02:11 PM 7/6/2002 -0400, Simon St.Laurent wrote:
>At 10:53 AM 7/6/2002 -0700, Dare Obasanjo wrote:
>>
>>So obviously using data typing in XML is outside your use cases so why 
>>are you still arguing the point? Why not simply agree to disagree.
>
>It's not just outside out my use cases.  At this point I see it as 
>outright pollution, a dangerous mash that developers are mistaking for 
>what XML actually does.

Perhaps developers are assuming this because the body that owns the 
trademark on XML and is responsible for developing it has said so. And 
perhaps the W3C did so because, believe it or not, developers were begging 
us for datatypes. And perhaps that's the reason that the simple datatypes 
of XML Schema are being used in other standards and systems, including many 
that simply don't want to see the total complexity of XML Schema. RELAX-NG, 
for instance.

So far, when I ask how I am supposed to sort my integers correctly, you 
have told me merely that I could use many layers of software to do this. 
You have not yet shown me how to use these multiple layers to do what 
XQuery was designed to do - query large persistent stores of XML, views of 
non-XML data, allow queries to integrate the two, provide type safety for 
queries, etc.

I very much want XQuery to be able to do these things, even if it violates 
Simon's notions of purity.

>I don't believe that XQuery has very much to do with XML at this 
>point.  It's time to stop letting the W3C slap the "XML" brand on whatever 
>spec their members feel like selling.  They don't appear to give a damn 
>about the side effects.

Perhaps the W3C will transfer the trademark on XML to Simon so that he can 
decide what constitutes XML, but that's not really what we are discussing 
here. XQuery supports XML, as defined by the W3C. It does not redefine it.

If you really believe that the XML Query Working Group doesn't care about 
making things as simple as we can, while still meeting our requirements, 
then I don't know what reality you are living in.

If you believe that the public as a whole does not want to use XQuery to 
query persistent stores of XML and XML views of non-XML data, or that htey 
don't care about datatypes, then I don't know what reality you are living in.

Our use cases have been out there for a long time. When I speak on XQuery 
at XML conferences, nobody objects that we should not support datatypes, 
and most people I talk to seem to think they are important for their 
applications.

So I agree with Dare. Your use cases don't seem to be the ones XQuery was 
designed for.

Jonathan

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: XQuery and DTD/Schema?
    • From: Uche Ogbuji <uche.ogbuji@f...>
  • Re: XQuery and DTD/Schema?
    • From: Uche Ogbuji <uche.ogbuji@f...>

• References:
  • RE: RE: XQuery and DTD/Schema?
    • From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>

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