Fwd: xquery & web server in browser

[Gary Lewis]

Sorry, all. In this post to Markus, I forgot to cc http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk
So I'm forwarding it now.

Also, it looks like an earlier reply I made was bounced. So here's the
bounced message. And then that is followed by the forwarded message.
What a mess.


BOUNCED?
Transmit Report:

 To: http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk, 2009/06/18 05:14:29, 452, This mailbox is
temporarily disabled. This mailbox is automatically ena


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Gary Lewis <http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk>
To: http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk
Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:30:34 -0400
Subject:  xquery & web server in browser
A couple people have mentioned zorba. I've used and quite like zorba
xquery; even wrote a blog post about it and included some analysis of
Federal Reserve Economic Data time series accessed via an API with
zorba.

I'm also familiar with the zorba XQIB project but do not use a Windows
OS so have not played with it yet. But my impression (probably wrong)
is that XQIB is cast mostly as an alternative to JavaScript, using
scripting extensions to XQuery. If true (please let me know
otherwise), I'm not so much interested in this aspect. As I said
earlier, I'm mostly interested in a data integration & transformation
tool that sits in a browser and gets used as a precursor to analysis &
graphics tools.

Thanks to all who've responded. It's been an helpful orientation,
since my question is really a stretch into the unknown for me.

Gary


FORGOT to cc http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Gary Lewis <http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk>
Date: Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 4:29 PM
Subject: Re:  xquery & web server in browser
To: http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk


Hi Markus - I'm in over my head here. I wish I had the knowledge
necessary to provide the use case you'd no doubt like. But I'll do the
best I can.

Let's start with this question. In a p2p web ... as Google Chrome/Wave
and Opera Unite suggest might happen ... is there a new role for
xquery? I guess I'd answer that question with a tentative "Yes."
Here's a simple example. There's a lot of buzz around transparency now
... government transparency, data transparency, etc. In the U.S.,
data.gov is a recent case. The idea is simple enough. Make government
data sets available to the public and let them mash it up and then
share it. [In some ways this scenario gives me the creeps, because I
know from years of experience how very difficult it is to insure data
integrity during analysis.] I'd love to use xquery as a data
integration and transformation tool as preparation for analysis,
visualization, & presentation. And then to share the data with others
in a kind of social network of data reuse. I was guessing when I
suggested that xquery in a browser with a web server might make this
future possible. I've no way of knowing. But maybe one of  you might.

ok, that's it for me on this thread. I'm so far out on a limb it's frightening.

Gary


On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 1:26 PM, Markus Pilman <http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk> wrote:
>
> Hi Gary,
>
> I surely see your point about XQuery in the browser - as stated before
> by others: check out our project at http://www.xqib.org/
>
> At the moment, the release works only with Internet Explorer - but the
> next release (which is nearly finished - we hope to release it this
> month) will also run with Firefox and will be much faster. Feel free
> to contact me directly, if you are interested in it.
>
> But I wanted to ask you, where exactly you see the usecases of having
> a web server in the browser? To be honest: the last thing I want
> running in my browser is a server (as Michael stated because of
> complexity, but also because of security). Also, in most companies
> (and also on most routers), all ports are normally closed, which makes
> a webserver useless. The only benefit I can see, is that this way it
> would be easy to implement some kind of RPC from the server to the
> client. But in my oppinion, this would be a too small advantage to
> legitimate a webserver.
>
> Regards,
>
> Markus
>
> On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 4:42 PM, Michael Kay<http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk> wrote:
> >
> > There are a lot of people keen on the idea of xquery in the web browser.
> >
> > Unfortunately, though, I think there's a bit of a conflict. A lot of the
> > benefits of the web architecture come from the fact that the browser is
> > small, ubiqitous, and predictable. The more goodies you put in it, the less
> > that remains true. And the less it is true, the harder it is to write
> > applications that will run anywhere and talk to anything. This is why, after
> > ten years, writing applications that rely on XSLT-in-the-browser can still
> > be problematic, as recently discussed on the xml-dev list.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Michael Kay
> > http://www.saxonica.com/
> > http://twitter.com/michaelhkay
> >
> >
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk
> >> [mailto:http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk] On Behalf Of Gary Lewis
> >> Sent: 17 June 2009 15:14
> >> To: http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk
> >> Subject:  xquery & web server in browser
> >>
> >> I'm a new member of the talk list and am uncertain that my
> >> question is appropriate. Please ignore if it is off topic.
> >>
> >> Can anyone comment on the possibility that xquery could be
> >> used as a data integration/mashup tool running in a browser
> >> that included a web server? There's been quite a bit of
> >> excitement the past couple days about the Opera Unite
> >> announcement of its "web server in a web browser" concept. Is
> >> it possible that xquery, as a
> >> query/integration/transformation tool, might someday be a
> >> plugin to a browser (eg, Chrome; Chrome/Wave)?
> >>
> >> I'm asking out of ignorance more than anything. The dots seem
> >> to be there for the connecting, but I guess that's what I'm
> >> asking ... are the dots there, are they likely to be
> >> connected, or is it just wishful  thinking?
> >>
> >>  Just so you have some orientation as to where this question
> >> is coming from. I'm basically a data user ... someone who
> >> uses tools like SQL and XQuery and R to do analysis with
> >> data. In the course of doing this, I've stretched into the IT
> >> side of things and designed enterprise data warehouses etc.
> >> So my interest in xquery-in-a-web-server-browser is so I can
> >> do cool things with data.
> >> I'm not interested in actually creating an xquery plugin that
> >> would make this possible. I wouldn't even know how to start.
> >>
> >> Thanks.
> >>
> >> Gary
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk
> >> http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk
> > http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk
> >