RE: variables prefix - ?variable vs. $variable

> > > Third, it might not cost us, WG members, anything but it imposes a
> > > cost on others.
> > 
> > What cost ? We have no legacy at all - we have little 
> deployed code out
> > there; and just a few docs.
> 
> Really? There aren't RDQL (and TriQL and Algae users extant 
> who are accustomed to spelling
> a variable like "?this"? Do their expectations really matter 
> so little?

As a general note, yes. Their expectations matter very little. RDQL is
used in a tiny community and is clearly in the realm of the "proprietary
one-off language".
This is in contrast to languages like SQL and XQuery, which many large
companies have committed millions of dollars to training thousands of
consultants on (yes--"millions" and "thousands" really apply to XQuery).

The semantic technology insiders already using RDQL, although I'm sure
they can be ornery, have next to no inertia compared with these huge
industry powerhouses interested in employees with commodity skills.


(As always, this is just one perspective on the issue; I don't mean to
start a flame war here.)

(And I remain skeptical that the parallel to SQL actually solves more
problems than it introduces via unjustified assumptions about language
semantics, but the SQL community is certainly a group whose reaction
needs to be considered much more carefully than that of the RDQL
community.)

Received on Tuesday, 31 August 2004 21:28:26 UTC