Re: OFFSET/LIMIT, cursors, and DAWG scope boundaries

On Tue, Apr 05, 2005 at 11:07:19 -0500, Dan Connolly wrote:
> 
> In our discussion of the sort issue today, I was kinda
> interested to try to move the "give me the answer in slices"
> functionality to the protocol, but this evening I remembered...
> 
> "2.3 Cursors and proofs
> 
> Some languages, for instance, OQL, define a layer of protocol that
> handles requester/server interactions for result set cursors or proofs.
> The abstract syntax may be extensible to express the relevant
> parameters, but their definition and effects are beyond the scope of
> this working group."
> 
> http://www.w3.org/2003/12/swa/dawg-charter#protocol
> 
> If I sorta disregard "proof" in that section, it seems to say
> that cursors are out of scope, and the sort of protocol
> cookie/tokens that came to my mind when we discussed moving
> OFFSET/LIMIT to the protocol seem to be an awful lot like
> cursors.

Well, that is pretty much the distinction, cursors are API (protocol
equivalent I guess, though sometimes thier passed in the same channel,
thier not queries AFAIK) and LIMIT+OFFSET are in the QL.

That said, I'd still prefer not to have sorting, and LIMIT+OFFSET are not
practical without sorting.

- Steve