size of XQuery developer community

[Hans-Juergen Rennau]

Daniela,

the term you use - data processing language - is exactly the term I arrived at when trying to label what XQuery is. And indeed, "XQuery" is a terrible misnomer which may be much more guilty of the present niche existence than one suspects. This is because anyone having used some XPath expressions feels (rightly!) that he essentially has already "queried" the data, so why bother with some _further_ query language when the one at hand does the job? And it is the whole gamut of data integration, transformation, tailoring, evaluation, reporting, code generation... that is eclipsed by the ridiculous term "query".

Only a few days ago it occurred to me that "information processing language" may be better than "data processing language", because it suggests the concept of information as something formally defined and to be submitted to operations in turn formally defined as information processing operations. And this is the point at the same time so exciting and so hard to communicate: that the time has arrived for something unprecedented: an information processing language - a term that would not make any sense without a unifying information model, but _now_, at last, makes sense.

As to whose fault it is that understanding is so scarce, I think you are right and wrong at the same time. Yes - why have some essential things not more clearly and more audibly been stated? But on the other hand - why do developers and architects so stubbornly refuse just to _listen_ ?

With kind regards,
Hans-Juergen






----- Ursprüngliche Mail ----
Von: Daniela Florescu <http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk>
An: Hans-Juergen Rennau <http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk>
CC: http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk
Gesendet: Montag, den 31. August 2009, 08:58:34 Uhr
Betreff: Re:  size of XQuery developer community

> a widespread lack of a _deep_ understanding of XML.

Hans-Juergen,

Yes, you are right.  There is a deep misunderstanding in IT of our core message
about the role of XML in the new architectures. XML is not syntax, it can/should be
the primary way of modeling data. XQuery is not a query language (oh well), but a
full blown (declarative) data processing language.

However, if the world misunderstands it, it is hardly the world's fault.

It is that we do not express this message in a clear, concise and convincing enough
manner -- and probably not in the right places, either.

I hope we don't have to wait 20 years for the message to be heard....

Best regards
Dana