XQJ (JSR 225)

[David A. Lee]

I don't want to speak for others, but I find this a curious 
discussion.   My opinion, from a definite 'outsider' trying to 
ignorantly catch up on all these technologies,
is that there seems to be a schism of philosophy regarding XQuery.  I 
see it as sorta a "world view" thing, so I shall use that phrase.  This 
is alluded to in Mike's (co-authored) excellent book "XQuery from the 
Experts".    My naive view of this is that it seems there are some 
groups of people who view XQuery as really a "Database query language" 
and other people who view XQuery as a "XML Transformation language".   
This world view seems to affect a whole bunch of things, from the 
language syntax and design itself, to API's to users discussing "what 
language is 'best' for XYZ".  Even the name "XQuery" itself leads to 
fundamental, often unconscious assumptions around this world view that 
affect how it is used.

I could definitely imagine that the XQJ authors (although I wasn't there 
so I'm guessing ...) may not be so  much ignorant of alternative API 
models, but rather drive decisions from a world-view of "What is 
XQuery".   That can (and does) lead one to consider some models and 
reject others almost off-hand.
The same thing is seen in all sorts of other fields-of-thought (such as 
the sciences, physics, engineering, biology etc).

IMHO, this 'schism of world views' around XQuery is both good and bad.  
Its good because it can attract people from different backgrounds to 
consider XQuery where they otherwise wouldn't, and to think of it in 
terms of their experience.   Its bad because it has the opposite effect 
as well, it discourages people from considering XQuery as anything other 
then their experience and imposes preconceptions, often unconscious.



David A. Lee
http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk  
http://www.calldei.com
http://www.xmlsh.org
812-482-5224



Michael Kay wrote:
>>   I wonder why the design was not based on the JAXP API for 
>> XSLT rather than on JDBC...  
>>     
>
> Largely NIH syndrome (not-invented-here). It's true JAXP has major faults
> too, but that's no excuse for ignoring its good points. I suspect the XQJ
> designers had never used JAXP in anger - no-one is familiar with all
> possible precedents, after all.
>
> Regards,
>
> Michael Kay
> http://www.saxonica.com/
> http://twitter.com/michaelhkay 
>
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