At 11:57 AM 6/4/2008, Mike wrote:
XQuery is off-topic for this list; try the talk@xxxxxxxxxx list. It's just
as helpful as this list though it has a tiny fraction of the traffic - which
either means that XQuery is much easier to use than XSLT, or that no-one is
using it.
Or that talk@xxxxxxxxxx itself is undersubscribed. XSL-List has been
around for ten years, is widely archived, and widely cited where it
counts. XQuery's checkered history, on the other hand, is such that
it's actually fairly difficult to get reliable current information on
XQuery on the net, including which resources and mailing lists are
really any good. It's impossible to know, but XQuery may have a
higher proportion of newcomers who either manage it on their own, or
cast it aside in disgust without ever finding a mother lode of good
information. XSL-List is not only large and busy; it also has many
satisfied alumni who have learned from it and moved on. That's a hard
act to follow.
It's also possible that XQuery newcomers may also be better served by
vendors. Virtually the only software vendor who has been very active
in helping people learn XSLT has been Mike Kay. To a surprising
extent, other vendors have been able to ride on his coattails and
those of others (including this list's). This is part of the reason,
IMO, why XSLT has remained strong, since it's less prone to
fragmentation than technologies whose advocates have been less
committed to standards in fact as well as in name. Whether XQuery is
able to emerge with a viable community of its own -- or even better,
a viable niche within the larger open-source community, next to those
of complimentary technologies -- remains to be seen. Free-to-use
implementations such as eXist and Saxon are key to that, I think; and
so is an open forum like this one.
Cheers,
Wendell
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Wendell Piez mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Mulberry Technologies, Inc. http://www.mulberrytech.com
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