Re: Potential TAG issue in re consistency, Schema, etc.

Hi Tim,

> The XQuery Working Group's response continues "While this is clearly
> a decision for the Architecture team..." which I guess means the
> TAG.
>
> I'm hardly unbiased here because I strongly disagree with the
> direction the XQuery WG is going here on technical grounds.
> Furthermore, I think that if this issue were being discussed on
> purely technical terms, some decisions might be different.
>
> So does anyone think there's an issue here we ought to take up?

Yes, please. I'll note, though, that this is also an XPath issue.
Personally, I'm concerned that the XQuery design decisions are having
a large effect on the design of XPath 2.0, which of course has an
effect on XSLT 2.0. You've probably noticed the discussions on XML-Dev
in which users and vendors state that they won't be using/implementing
XSLT 2.0 because of the burden of XPath 2.0. I think that this effect
on two of the core, and more successful, XML-related technologies is
very worrisome.

There are several issues in the XPath/XQuery space that I think count
as architectural-level issues:

  1. The relationship between XPath and XML Schema Structures --
     whether XML Schema 1.0 is the only schema language that XPath
     should cater for or whether it should be extensible such that
     other schema languages can be "plugged in" now or at a later
     date.

  2. The relationship between XPath and W3C XML Schema Datatypes --
     the extent to which XPath should adopt the data types specified
     by XML Schema 1.0 and if so whether making changes/additions to
     this set is appropriate.
     
  3. The relationship between XPath and XQuery -- whether XQuery
     should, as it does currently, "subsume" XPath, or whether XPath
     should be designed in such a way that XQuery can act as a host
     language for it, like any other.

  4. The relationship between XPath and other standards that use it,
     such as XPointer, XForms, DOM Level 3 (XPath), even the XML
     representation of XML Schema -- whether these should be
     considered host languages for XPath 2.0 and, if so, whether XPath
     2.0 meets their requirements.

  5. The relationship between XPath 2.0 and XPath 1.0 -- whether XPath
     2.0 should be the natural successor to XPath 1.0, to which all
     host languages are requited to upgrade, or should be viewed as an
     enhanced technology that is only relevant to technologies
     requiring schema support.

If these *are* within the TAG's remit (and I think they are), I hope
that you'll consider them.
     
Cheers,

Jeni

---
Jeni Tennison
http://www.jenitennison.com/

Received on Saturday, 12 October 2002 14:08:07 UTC