OO-XQ-OO: to do or not to do

[David Lee]

Hans-Juergen Rennau wrote:
> Martin,
>
> you wrote:
>
> "And yes, using XQuery, XSLT, XProc, XForms, X... for the XML-focused
> parts of your application is a huge improvement over manual DOM
> fiddling. But that is hardly news, is it? "
>
> Not to *us* - it would be ridiculous to tell this anyone already interested in xquery-talk. But do you think this is commonly understood by OO developers, do you think the "average" OO project checks this option and then makes a decision pro or con?
>
> Having read your response I visited a jobboard website and made a little test. Results:
>   
---------------

I've had this argument used against me, its a vicious circle !
The argument is that we should not use X* technology even if the person 
writing knows how because for "future maintance" it may be hard to find
programmers.   The argument was based on exactly this kind of job 
search.   "Since there are so few job openings for X* technology we can 
surmise that there are few programmers who know it, therefore it is a 
bad idea to use it in our programs".
ARG !!!!!!

The best I could come up with was that X* is "learnable" that anyone who 
is a compitent programmer can learn it.   I would never hire someone who 
refused to learn X* technology to work on XML projects anymore then I 
would hire someone who refused to learn SQL* technology to work on 
Database projects.

But its an uphill battle.  People who haven't experienced the benefit of 
X* technology often fight to the bitter end to defend their position 
that its too hard or not useful enough or to obscure ... Often due to 
anecdotes from some previous programmer who wrote a ugly unmaintainable 
program which "proves" that good O'le DOM programming is the way to go.


-David Lee
http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk