size of XQuery developer community

[Gary Lewis]

On Wed Aug 26 17:39:05 PDT 2009, Daniela Florescu wrote:

> ... XQuery has tremendous potential for adding
> value to customers, but the proof isn't there yet, and the path isn't
> clear either.
>
> There has to be a larger XQuery pool of expertise ...

Hi Daniela - I finally got around to reading this entire thread thru
to 9/1. It's truly humbling to see how much about XQuery, XML, etc I
do not know.

But perhaps my newcomer status will provide a useful perspective.

First some quick background. I definitely don't yet qualify as an
XQuery developer. But I've been working pretty conscientiously over
the past 4 or 5 months. I come to XQuery with decades of SQL, data
warehouse design, and policy analysis background (ie, I see databases
as a means to analysis, not an end in themselves). I got interested in
XQuery because I needed a tool that would let me query the Web in a
similar fashion to querying relational databases. The Web and web
query tools are still primitive by comparison, but I've been quite
pleased with what's possible. For example, my latest XQuery
demonstration project mashed up US Dept of Education data with Federal
Reserve data to examine the question of whether higher education in
the US is countercyclical. See:
http://garymlewis.com/instchg/2009/08/10/another-xquery-use-case-is-higher-education-countercyclical/

Given a choice, I'll almost always choose tools with power and
capability versus those with ease-of-use but limited application. So,
for example, I'm willing to curse and beat my head against a wall
every time I use the R stat programs because I know that somehow
there's a solution in R and that someone in the R community will know
what the solution is.

I've probably written several thousand XQuery programs now. But I only
feel comfortable in a very narrow niche. There is just oodles about
XML and all the other X standards and tools that I do not know. Some
of this is surely just beginner's lament (ie, the notion that anything
you can't learn instantly is way too complex). But some too is a steep
learning curve in the absence of adequate support for learning.

You ask why there is not more XQuery expertise. The XQuery community
might benefit from looking at the R community [see:
http://www.r-project.org/ ] and the considerable help resources
available there. It's easier for a developer to get untracked with any
new tool if there is visible help available. With regard to R, I'm
talking here about specialized search sites, repositories of learning
materials, open source and free tools, dozens upon dozens of forums,
examples as code fragments, online books and manuals, and a community
of very active R developers/enhancers.

I like XQuery a lot. I will continue to use it. And no doubt in the
course of using it, I'll fill in the many holes of what I don't know.
But I could sure benefit from something like an XQuery learning
resource site.

Gary