Tool development: by Perl-wrapped XQuery

[Martin Probst]

> This is why I suggest either (both)
>
> * Use a scripting language that already is 'in process' with all the XML
> core languages you want to use (xquery, xslt etc)
> -> examples XProc, xmlsh
>
> * Encourage scripting languages developers to embed these XML languages
> directly into the scripting languages (say perl).

While XProc is probably the cleanest solution, another approach in
particular for ad-hoc scripting might be to use an existing scripting
language that can run on top of the JVM (1), e.g. jython or jruby.
This gives you the flexibility of handy scripting but doesn't incur
the overhead of re-parsing huge documents. And of course on the JVM
you'll find implementations for everything-XML, from XSLT via XQuery
and XML databases to various validation tools etc., all nicely
co-existing based on the DOM and SAX (2).

Regards
Martin

(1) this might also be possible on other platforms, e.g. the CLR, but
I have no clue about those
(2) while I'm the first to bash the DOM for its horrible programming
interface, it's role as a common ground for all XML tools is
wonderful.