- From: Michael Sperberg-McQueen <U35395@UICVM.UIC.EDU>
- Date: Wed, 09 Apr 97 09:10:15 CDT
- To: W3C SGML Working Group <w3c-sgml-wg@w3.org>
On Wed, 9 Apr 1997 09:17:40 -0400 Gavin Nicol said: (quoting Terry Allen) >>The circumstance I'm wondering about most is this: ... >> ... In the case of [queries], >>quick random testing reveals that some servers return the >>entire instance (not what was expected, some error recovery will >>be needed there), or fail to return anything but an error message. > >Right, and this is the core of my disagreement with using queries. >We either standardise something, or nothing will be gauranteed to >work, in which case, it's probably better to stay silent for the >moment. This appears to be an argument which proves that queries IN GENERAL cannot possibly be useful -- nothing specific to XML here. Since queries do in practice seem to be found useful, despite the fact that they only work on servers on which they work, I don't see any reason not to describe how they can be used in XML. The same problems surely arise if you build the query into the path segment of the URL: it will work only on servers on which it works. What am I missing? -C. M. Sperberg-McQueen
Received on Wednesday, 9 April 1997 10:15:13 UTC