Tool development: by Perl-wrapped XQuery

[David A. Lee]

>
> That's the downside of issuing specifications and waiting for the
> implementations to happen. Thank God XML does have a standard
> serialization, so any document can migrate from one implementation
> to another :-)
>
I wish that were true.  Its true for "Documents" but not for everything 
XML tools want to process and consume.
My current peeve is sequences.
There is *NO* standard representation of sequences period.  (please 
please tell me I'm wrong !)
A real example:
    toolA : produces a sequence of nodes
    toolB : accepts a sequence of nodes

There is no standard way of glueing these together in any language or 
serialization format that I know of.  Its all vendor specific.
And you cant even rely on the worse case of text serialization
. 
A typical part-solution/hack is to wrap the sequences in a document, 
then unwrap them on the target.  This works sometimes.
It fails miserably for things like sequences of attributes,  or even 
sequences of integers.



>
> Isn't .NET a solution to that problem?
>
It is a nice framework.  But someone still has to write all the pieces 
and agree to as common representation for all the data interfaces.
And the common .NET languages are about at the same level as Java ... 
although there is a windows .net scripting language I wouldn't call it 
"simple".
So I dont agree that .NET is a "solution".   Its a technology framework 
not a solution in itself.
Saxon has a great .NET binding (runs the JVM directly within .NET but 
exposes pure .NET interfaces).
But its at the same level of complexity to use as java and doesnt have 
*all* the pieces.  Its got lots, but not all.

I'd love to see a comprehensive XML tools framework in .NET which is 
actually as simple to use as scripting.  I think it could be done.
But to be 'really simple' , IMHO, would require a .NET implementation of 
a scripting syntax.

ruby.net anyone :) ?


-David

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