From james.fuller.2007 at gmail.com  Sun Oct  2 08:43:59 2011
From: james.fuller.2007 at gmail.com (James Fuller)
Date: Sun, 2 Oct 2011 17:43:59 +0200
Subject: [xquery-talk] [ANN] xquerydoc
In-Reply-To: <CADsXk-aNMfs4LxRLMbs9KW_czmpOwmsCRrojhU5s8pWnSeScrg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CADsXk-aD7Tcd4QYqGjvW-bemkjFJJtmitJfGww7DcRRBzrTN0g@mail.gmail.com>
	<1317070698.36653.YahooMailNeo@web29508.mail.ird.yahoo.com>
	<CADsXk-aNMfs4LxRLMbs9KW_czmpOwmsCRrojhU5s8pWnSeScrg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CADsXk-atcPJXhEuzKuzYAELppKtasVBdngd3T=FfQG+NZmyNNg@mail.gmail.com>

Folks,

Can I ask that you test xquerydoc ? Doing some adjustments to it today
and could do with feedback

I) download xquerydoc (or git clone) from https://github.com/xquery/xquerydoc

II) cd to top level xquerydoc directory

III) run from terminal

make install

IV) run from terminal

xquerydoc src/xquery docs html

You should now have generated docs (from xquerydoc own source) into
the docs directory.

Limitations;
* not recursing into nested directories (this will change real soon)
* need windows .bat files to replicate Makefile and bin/xquerydoc scripts

very much appreciated (and not expected if you dont have the time)

thx Jim Fuller

From dlee at calldei.com  Sun Oct  2 09:34:23 2011
From: dlee at calldei.com (David Lee)
Date: Sun, 2 Oct 2011 12:34:23 -0400
Subject: [xquery-talk] [xml-dev] JDBC in an XQuery world (?)
In-Reply-To: <20111002162348.GF17057@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <003701cc8095$d7638dd0$862aa970$@calldei.com>
	<20111002162348.GF17057@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <6F454FFC-E603-4302-96BF-8BC0813637CD@calldei.com>

This is one way of looking at it and perhaps the most fruitful.  But I disagree with the premise that jdbc MUST use SQL as the query language.  The difference between vendor's "SQL" is so vast they might as well be different languages.  So why not allow pure xquery as the JDBC query string?

But I agree there would be more portability If the language was SQL like.

As for the results .. Xquery returns xdm not XML so there needs to be a mapping of xdm to ResultSet interface.

Maybe not all xdm maps well but I could imagine a convention like say XDML which provides enough metadata to map the result XDM to a result set.

Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 2, 2011, at 12:23 PM, John Cowan <cowan at mercury.ccil.org> wrote:

> 
> David Lee scripsit:
> 
>> Suppose we had a JDBC interface to  XQuery/XML databases ? Sure it wouldn't
>> be the best choice ... but then neither is using JDBC for Oracle or MySQL
> 
> JDBC is just a thin layer over SQL; JDBC clients construct SQL strings, possibly
> with variables in them.  So the question is: what would it mean for an
> XQuery database to expose a SQL API?  It would require a mapping of the
> XML data model onto a relational data model, which inevitably would
> require discarding some information.  What information exactly?  Would it
> be possible to access every XML document, or just some of them?
> 
> -- 
> A poetical purist named Cowan           [that's me: cowan at ccil.org]
> Once put the rest of us dowan.          [on xml-dev]
>    "Your verse would be sweeter        http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
>    If it only had metre
> And rhymes that didn't force me to frowan."     [overpacked line!] --Michael Kay


From liam at w3.org  Sun Oct  2 11:25:08 2011
From: liam at w3.org (Liam R E Quin)
Date: Sun, 02 Oct 2011 14:25:08 -0400
Subject: [xquery-talk] JDBC in an XQuery world (?)
In-Reply-To: <003701cc8095$d7638dd0$862aa970$@calldei.com>
References: <003701cc8095$d7638dd0$862aa970$@calldei.com>
Message-ID: <1317579908.11290.221.camel@desktop.barefootcomputing.com>

On Sat, 2011-10-01 at 19:57 -0400, David Lee wrote:
> [...]

> What if I have (or want) an XQuery database
> (or would you call that a XML database with an XQuery interface ...?) 

SQL/XML I think describes enough of a mapping, no?


> I've been thinking ..  Suppose we had a JDBC driver that could talk 'native'
> to an XQuery backend DB ?
> 
> 1) What problems would it solve ?
> 
> 2) What would it look like ?

I wonder if that's a good topic for a W3C community group?

Liam

-- 
Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/


From dlee at calldei.com  Sun Oct  2 11:54:46 2011
From: dlee at calldei.com (David Lee)
Date: Sun, 2 Oct 2011 14:54:46 -0400
Subject: [xquery-talk] [xml-dev] Re:  JDBC in an XQuery world (?)
In-Reply-To: <20111002184246.GI17057@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <003701cc8095$d7638dd0$862aa970$@calldei.com>
	<1317579908.11290.221.camel@desktop.barefootcomputing.com>
	<20111002184246.GI17057@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <002901cc8134$c1e5ff20$45b1fd60$@calldei.com>

Syas Liam:

I don't think so.  SQL/XML extends SQL to add XML as a new kind of primitive
SQL data type, like strings, numbers, and dates.  What's needed here is a
way to do ordinary SQL operations over an XDM-based database.
--------------

Exactly.
SQL/XML is the inverse problem as what I'm discussing.

A simplistic mode is to map XML Document <-> SQL Table

However after using MarkLogic and Exist for a while I'm getting to think of 
	collection() <-> table
	XML Document <-> row

Taking this one step further.  Suppose were querying an XML Database (not an
XML Document).

	Xquery Module  <-> table
	XML Result 	<-> row

This lets us model an XQUery module as the equivalent of a relational "View"
and seperate us from the underlying document model.
 By defining a 'contract' for a set of Xquery modules that return a sequence
as their result, (flattening the XML nodes) this might work well.
Takes some thought how to do Insert/Update but along the same lines ...
Xquery modules could be the glue that translates XDM <-> SQL without
imposing a riged binding (fits all == fits none)   of XML <-> SQL\


----------------------------------------
David A. Lee
dlee at calldei.com
http://www.xmlsh.org


-----Original Message-----
From: John Cowan [mailto:cowan at ccil.org] On Behalf Of John Cowan
Sent: Sunday, October 02, 2011 2:43 PM
To: Liam R E Quin
Cc: David Lee; xml-dev at lists.xml.org; talk at x-query.com
Subject: Re: [xml-dev] Re: [xquery-talk] JDBC in an XQuery world (?)


Liam R E Quin scripsit:

> > What if I have (or want) an XQuery database
> > (or would you call that a XML database with an XQuery interface ...?) 
> 
> SQL/XML I think describes enough of a mapping, no?

I don't think so.  SQL/XML extends SQL to add XML as a new kind of primitive
SQL data type, like strings, numbers, and dates.  What's needed here is a
way to do ordinary SQL operations over an XDM-based database.

-- 
How comes city and country to be filled with drones         John Cowan
and rogues, our highways with hackers, and all          cowan at ccil.org
places with sloth and wickedness?           http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
                --W. Blith, Eng. Improver Improved, 1652

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From dlee at calldei.com  Sun Oct  2 12:10:34 2011
From: dlee at calldei.com (David Lee)
Date: Sun, 2 Oct 2011 15:10:34 -0400
Subject: [xquery-talk] JDBC in an XQuery world (?)
In-Reply-To: <1317579908.11290.221.camel@desktop.barefootcomputing.com>
References: <003701cc8095$d7638dd0$862aa970$@calldei.com>
	<1317579908.11290.221.camel@desktop.barefootcomputing.com>
Message-ID: <002e01cc8136$f6f8a850$e4e9f8f0$@calldei.com>

How would one go about starting a W3C community group >?


> I've been thinking ..  Suppose we had a JDBC driver that could talk
'native'
> to an XQuery backend DB ?
> 
> 1) What problems would it solve ?
> 
> 2) What would it look like ?

I wonder if that's a good topic for a W3C community group?

Liam

-- 
Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/

_______________________________________________
talk at x-query.com
http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk


From pc.subscriptions at gmail.com  Sun Oct  2 12:20:24 2011
From: pc.subscriptions at gmail.com (Peter Coppens)
Date: Sun, 2 Oct 2011 21:20:24 +0200
Subject: [xquery-talk] [xml-dev] Re:  JDBC in an XQuery world (?)
In-Reply-To: <20111002184246.GI17057@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <003701cc8095$d7638dd0$862aa970$@calldei.com>
	<1317579908.11290.221.camel@desktop.barefootcomputing.com>
	<20111002184246.GI17057@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <6E310287-779D-47F0-81E9-2E37824165CF@gmail.com>


On 02 Oct 2011, at 20:42, John Cowan wrote:

> Liam R E Quin scripsit:
> 
>>> What if I have (or want) an XQuery database
>>> (or would you call that a XML database with an XQuery interface ...?) 
>> 
>> SQL/XML I think describes enough of a mapping, no?
> 
> I don't think so.  SQL/XML extends SQL to add XML as a new kind of primitive
> SQL data type, like strings, numbers, and dates.  What's needed here is a
> way to do ordinary SQL operations over an XDM-based database.

It does do a bit more as far as I understood it, e.g. it also introduce a "schredding" construct, XMLTABLE

Here is an example (http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/data/library/techarticle/dm-0708nicola/)

SELECT X.* 
FROM emp, 
XMLTABLE ('$d/dept/employee' passing doc as "d" 
   COLUMNS 
   empID 	INTEGER 	PATH '@id',
   firstname 	VARCHAR(20) 	PATH 'name/first',
   lastname 	VARCHAR(25) 	PATH 'name/last') AS X

In this case the source is still a table with some XML in some column but I guess making the step to some XML collection in some XML database is not that big.

Peter

From liam at w3.org  Sun Oct  2 12:24:14 2011
From: liam at w3.org (Liam R E Quin)
Date: Sun, 02 Oct 2011 15:24:14 -0400
Subject: [xquery-talk] [xml-dev] Re:  JDBC in an XQuery world (?)
In-Reply-To: <20111002184246.GI17057@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <003701cc8095$d7638dd0$862aa970$@calldei.com>
	<1317579908.11290.221.camel@desktop.barefootcomputing.com>
	<20111002184246.GI17057@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <1317583454.11290.228.camel@desktop.barefootcomputing.com>

On Sun, 2011-10-02 at 14:42 -0400, John Cowan wrote:
> Liam R E Quin scripsit:
> 
> > > What if I have (or want) an XQuery database
> > > (or would you call that a XML database with an XQuery interface ...?) 
> > 
> > SQL/XML I think describes enough of a mapping, no?
> 
> I don't think so.  SQL/XML extends SQL to add XML as a new kind of primitive
> SQL data type, like strings, numbers, and dates.  What's needed here is a
> way to do ordinary SQL operations over an XDM-based database.

I saw David's first question as having two aspects - could you connect
to a remote XQuery database using ODBC/JDBC and send it XQuery
expressions... the answer is probably, given that SQL has an XQuery
function now.  The other aspect, could you map from the XDM into SQL
types, is also addressed by SQL/XML, as I understand it (e.g. how
xs:dateTime maps to SQL date) so that you can use the results... When we
published the XQuery 1.0 Recommendation we were careful to liaise
between the editor of the ISO SQL work and the (co-)chair of the W3C
XQuery work... which was a straightforward mapping also.

The other question is, could you provide something jdbc-like but with no
SQL at all, not even a one-line wrapper function, and return XDM
instances directly to a system that can deal with this.  Sure, and we
could probably define an xdm:// or xquery:// URI scheme too. Lots of
interesting possibilities.

Liam


-- 
Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/


From rpbourret at rpbourret.com  Sun Oct  2 19:15:40 2011
From: rpbourret at rpbourret.com (Ronald Bourret)
Date: Sun, 02 Oct 2011 19:15:40 -0700
Subject: [xquery-talk] [xml-dev] Re:  JDBC in an XQuery world (?)
In-Reply-To: <6E310287-779D-47F0-81E9-2E37824165CF@gmail.com>
References: <003701cc8095$d7638dd0$862aa970$@calldei.com>	<1317579908.11290.221.camel@desktop.barefootcomputing.com>	<20111002184246.GI17057@mercury.ccil.org>
	<6E310287-779D-47F0-81E9-2E37824165CF@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4E891ACC.80809@rpbourret.com>

I agree with Peter here: SQL/XML is already a fairly complete solution.

For those of you not familiar with SQL/XML, it does a couple of things:

1) It defines a set of functions that allow you to return relational 
data as XML. This is the relational => XML mapping.

2) It defines a primitive XML data type. That is, you can have a column 
whose type is XML and store XML documents in that column.

3) XMLTABLE allows you to use XPath-like constructs to define what parts 
of an XML document (either stored in an XML column or constructed on the 
fly) correspond to a table. You then use SQL to query that "table." (See 
Peter's example below.) This is the XML => relational mapping.

In the case of XML databases, a collection in the XML database would 
correspond to an XML column in a relational database. This could be 
queried via XMLTABLE (which maps the XML documents to relational tables) 
and SQL (which queries those tables). (I can't remember whether 
XMLTABLEs are updateable -- I suspect not -- so this doesn't address the 
update side of the question.)

As a side note, it's misleading to think of "XQuery databases" here. 
XQuery is, at most, an implementation detail. That is, the class of 
drivers you are talking about would work with different XML data 
sources: XML databases, XML documents in the file system, URLs that 
return XML, etc.

How you implement such drivers depends on the data source and the amount 
of work you want to do. For example, to implement such a driver over an 
XML database that supports XQuery, you could map SQL to XQuery or you 
could just use XPath to extract data from the database, construct tables 
from that data, and use a lightweight SQL engine to further query that 
data. (Not efficient, but easier to implement, and similar to what JDBC 
drivers over CSV do today.)

-- Ron

P.S. For a list of products that already do this sort of thing, see:

    http://www.rpbourret.com/xml/ProdsWrappers.htm

The URLs are all out of date, but the descriptions give a flavor of what 
has already been done.

Peter Coppens wrote:
> On 02 Oct 2011, at 20:42, John Cowan wrote:
> 
>> Liam R E Quin scripsit:
>>
>>>> What if I have (or want) an XQuery database
>>>> (or would you call that a XML database with an XQuery interface ...?) 
>>> SQL/XML I think describes enough of a mapping, no?
>> I don't think so.  SQL/XML extends SQL to add XML as a new kind of primitive
>> SQL data type, like strings, numbers, and dates.  What's needed here is a
>> way to do ordinary SQL operations over an XDM-based database.
> 
> It does do a bit more as far as I understood it, e.g. it also introduce a "schredding" construct, XMLTABLE
> 
> Here is an example (http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/data/library/techarticle/dm-0708nicola/)
> 
> SELECT X.* 
> FROM emp, 
> XMLTABLE ('$d/dept/employee' passing doc as "d" 
>    COLUMNS 
>    empID 	INTEGER 	PATH '@id',
>    firstname 	VARCHAR(20) 	PATH 'name/first',
>    lastname 	VARCHAR(25) 	PATH 'name/last') AS X
> 
> In this case the source is still a table with some XML in some column but I guess making the step to some XML collection in some XML database is not that big.
> 
> Peter
> _______________________________________________
> talk at x-query.com
> http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk
> 
> 
> 
> -----
> No virus found in this message.
> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
> Version: 10.0.1410 / Virus Database: 1520/3933 - Release Date: 10/02/11
> 
> 

From james.fuller.2007 at gmail.com  Tue Oct  4 07:45:21 2011
From: james.fuller.2007 at gmail.com (James Fuller)
Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2011 16:45:21 +0200
Subject: [xquery-talk] [ANN] xquerydoc - help testing
Message-ID: <CADsXk-YebK6H3QxYzu12B0LypMQzPp=4ofFUwmCtO0ityNuPCw@mail.gmail.com>

If you are on Mac or ( u | li )/nux Can I ask that you test xquerydoc ?

Have updated to use latest calabash, added an install script and
generally made things work (previously versions were broken).

I) download xquerydoc (or git clone) from https://github.com/xquery/xquerydoc

II) cd to top level xquerydoc directory

III) run from terminal

make install

(note this will also install latest calabash which you will need to
make sure 'calabash' is on the system path)

IV) try xquerydoc out .... run from terminal

xquerydoc src/xquery docstest html

You should now have generated html into the docstest directory from
xquerydoc own source.

Limitations;
* not recursing into nested directories
* need windows .bat files
* need to expand xqdoc parsing

thx, Jim Fuller

From dflorescu at mac.com  Thu Oct  6 11:39:17 2011
From: dflorescu at mac.com (daniela florescu)
Date: Thu, 06 Oct 2011 11:39:17 -0700
Subject: [xquery-talk] JSON to XML mapping by John Snelson
Message-ID: <BD5231E6-3F2D-4F2A-98C2-02B255CCEE3B@mac.com>

Dear John,

your XML to JSON mapping proposal used to be at this link bellow.

http://snelson.org.uk/archives/2008/02/parsing_json_in.php#more

The link is not active anymore, and Google seems to fail me...

Could you please point us to the new location ?

Thanks
Dana

From John.Snelson at marklogic.com  Thu Oct  6 11:57:52 2011
From: John.Snelson at marklogic.com (John Snelson)
Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2011 11:57:52 -0700
Subject: [xquery-talk] JSON to XML mapping by John Snelson
In-Reply-To: <BD5231E6-3F2D-4F2A-98C2-02B255CCEE3B@mac.com>
References: <BD5231E6-3F2D-4F2A-98C2-02B255CCEE3B@mac.com>
Message-ID: <11CC5E27-E372-4329-A185-9CA82D9DB5F3@marklogic.com>

Sure - I've recently moved it off my old blog on the computer under my stairs, and into my more active posterous based blog, here:

http://john.snelson.org.uk/parsing-json-into-xquery

If you're interested, the JSON parser in XQilla that uses this mapping is now implemented in pure XQuery 3.0:

http://xqilla.hg.sourceforge.net/hgweb/xqilla/xqilla/file/6458513c94c0/src/functions/XQillaModule.xq

John

On 6 Oct 2011, at 19:39, daniela florescu wrote:

> Dear John,
> 
> your XML to JSON mapping proposal used to be at this link bellow.
> 
> http://snelson.org.uk/archives/2008/02/parsing_json_in.php#more
> 
> The link is not active anymore, and Google seems to fail me...
> 
> Could you please point us to the new location ?
> 
> Thanks
> Dana



From william.candillon at 28msec.com  Fri Oct  7 02:32:08 2011
From: william.candillon at 28msec.com (William Candillon)
Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2011 11:32:08 +0200
Subject: [xquery-talk] 28msec is going Mongo(DB)
Message-ID: <CAM7ytN81hdN5To74DRAhVvBUAEH083w2Yu30taSpoh28T7WbOQ@mail.gmail.com>

Hello folks,

28msec is pleased to announce the 1.4.0 release of Sausalito, code
name "Rancho Cucamonga".
The major feature of this release is the integration of MongoDB as our
storage in the cloud.
Find more information at
http://www.28msec.com/html/entry/2011/10/06/Sausalito_14

Best,

William

From dflorescu at mac.com  Wed Oct 12 11:03:44 2011
From: dflorescu at mac.com (Daniela Florescu)
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 11:03:44 -0700
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
Message-ID: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>

Dear all,

I am having a problem right now, and I don't know how to solve it.

We had over the summer several outstanding students, who did
really great research in processing XML and XQuery.

Here comes the question. Where can we publish the result of this  
research  !?

1. I know that there is XML Prague (and that would be my first choice  
given the
skill of the audience).

But the problem with XML Prague is that it doesn't have (yet) the  
academic
"cloud". Students don't get PhDs because they published there, and  
professors don't get
tenure. (whether the world is well organized and why doesn't happen is  
a completely
different topic -- but that's the reality).

In a CV for an application for a professor position for Stanford  you  
can put it at best in the category:
hobbies and other activities, despite the fact that the work is  
technically equally challenging, if not more.

Balisage is another option, but has other problems.

2. Database conferences.

Unfortunately those guys don't understand much about XML. In fact they  
are strongly convinced
that XML/XQuery is totally dead  (just went to a Stanford professor  
talk that said just that, and Stonebreaker
says something along the same lines on a regular basis in the NoSQL  
conferences).

So they'll not understand the XQuery new work, let alone publish it.

3. Functional programming conferences (after all, XQuery is a  
functional language..). Maybe it's a choice !?
I have no experience, but I am interested to hear if anybody else has.

4. WWW Conference. Based on my experience, it's such a wide conference  
--- it's like a conference on water
-- where do you start !? As a result the audience, as well as the  
program committee, is interested in widely different
  things (and XML/XQuery might not be one of them, and then you are  
out of luck)

5. NoSQL conferences. Unfortunately, there are two problems. First,  
NoSQL is still not accepted in academic conferences
-- they have the same problem as XML itself. And second, they try to  
stay away from XML like crazy ("angle brackets, not cool, 
man, not cool. Not Web scale.").


So, I am interested in your feedback.

- Where is the "research center of gravity" of this community ?

- How can we stimulate young smart researchers to work on interesting  
and hard problems if they cannot value
this work for their carrier ?

Any feedback appreciated, thanks
Dana


From dlee at calldei.com  Wed Oct 12 11:51:35 2011
From: dlee at calldei.com (David Lee)
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 14:51:35 -0400
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
Message-ID: <006201cc890f$f82e9960$e88bcc20$@calldei.com>

Question.
1) What are "the other problems" with Balisage ?
2) What qualifies as "academic cloud" (clout?).

Way back when I was in collage Software of any kind wasn't considered
"academic" ... it was considered 'beneath the level' of any true academic
... which is probably why I dont look to PhD's when I'm looking for a good
software person.

Maybe there simply isn't something the Ivory Tower considers "worthy" in the
study of XQuery ?

But back to reality .. 
I'd certainly recommend Balisage.   There's been PhD people who have
published papers there and had official sanctions from their universities to
do so.  So at least for some combination of people & universities it
qualifies.






----------------------------------------
David A. Lee
dlee at calldei.com
http://www.xmlsh.org

-----Original Message-----
From: talk-bounces at x-query.com [mailto:talk-bounces at x-query.com] On Behalf
Of Daniela Florescu
Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2011 2:04 PM
To: xquery-discuss
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?


Dear all,

I am having a problem right now, and I don't know how to solve it.

We had over the summer several outstanding students, who did
really great research in processing XML and XQuery.

Here comes the question. Where can we publish the result of this  
research  !?

1. I know that there is XML Prague (and that would be my first choice  
given the
skill of the audience).

But the problem with XML Prague is that it doesn't have (yet) the  
academic
"cloud". Students don't get PhDs because they published there, and  
professors don't get
tenure. (whether the world is well organized and why doesn't happen is  
a completely
different topic -- but that's the reality).

In a CV for an application for a professor position for Stanford  you  
can put it at best in the category:
hobbies and other activities, despite the fact that the work is  
technically equally challenging, if not more.

Balisage is another option, but has other problems.

2. Database conferences.

Unfortunately those guys don't understand much about XML. In fact they  
are strongly convinced
that XML/XQuery is totally dead  (just went to a Stanford professor  
talk that said just that, and Stonebreaker
says something along the same lines on a regular basis in the NoSQL  
conferences).

So they'll not understand the XQuery new work, let alone publish it.

3. Functional programming conferences (after all, XQuery is a  
functional language..). Maybe it's a choice !?
I have no experience, but I am interested to hear if anybody else has.

4. WWW Conference. Based on my experience, it's such a wide conference  
--- it's like a conference on water
-- where do you start !? As a result the audience, as well as the  
program committee, is interested in widely different
  things (and XML/XQuery might not be one of them, and then you are  
out of luck)

5. NoSQL conferences. Unfortunately, there are two problems. First,  
NoSQL is still not accepted in academic conferences
-- they have the same problem as XML itself. And second, they try to  
stay away from XML like crazy ("angle brackets, not cool, 
man, not cool. Not Web scale.").


So, I am interested in your feedback.

- Where is the "research center of gravity" of this community ?

- How can we stimulate young smart researchers to work on interesting  
and hard problems if they cannot value
this work for their carrier ?

Any feedback appreciated, thanks
Dana

_______________________________________________
talk at x-query.com
http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk


From james.fuller.2007 at gmail.com  Wed Oct 12 12:03:31 2011
From: james.fuller.2007 at gmail.com (James Fuller)
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 21:03:31 +0200
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
Message-ID: <CADsXk-Zi2FuWf2Mzz_Z=rLMqGkN81KnTMhk7qLODGeKF42o=Ow@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 8:03 PM, Daniela Florescu <dflorescu at mac.com> wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> I am having a problem right now, and I don't know how to solve it.
>
> We had over the summer several outstanding students, who did
> really great research in processing XML and XQuery.
>
> Here comes the question. Where can we publish the result of this research
> ?!?


http://www.springer.com/computer/database+management+%26+information+retrieval/book/978-3-642-03554-8

http://www.springer.com/computer/database+management+%26+information+retrieval/book/978-3-540-30951-2

In my mind Balisage is the natural for this, but we could orientate
things now that we have moved XML Prague to University of Ekonomics
... perhaps there is value in a compiled journal from several
conferences/sources (XML Summer School et al) ?


> 2. Database conferences.

I dont think so ... many of these guys are being forced to accept
polystructured data ... my feeling is this are is probably the logical
container for these kind of papers.


> So they'll not understand the XQuery new work, let alone publish it.

agreed, but I its a pretty broad tent with lots of outlets for
publishing, some who may consider

> 3. Functional programming conferences (after all, XQuery is a functional
> language..). Maybe it's a choice !?
> I have no experience, but I am interested to hear if anybody else has.

fp bulk existence is in academic form and perhaps its time to welcome
xquery 3.0 to them ... they would probably support a language with a
gentle learning curve, etc.


> 4. WWW Conference. Based on my experience, it's such a wide conference ---
> it's like a conference on water
> -- where do you start !? As a result the audience, as well as the program
> committee, is interested in widely different
> ?things (and XML/XQuery might not be one of them, and then you are out of
> luck)

agreed too broad, but as an activity to get the word out about xquery
probably useful to attempt to go

> 5. NoSQL conferences. Unfortunately, there are two problems. First, NoSQL is
> still not accepted in academic conferences
> -- they have the same problem as XML itself. And second, they try to stay
> away from XML like crazy ("angle brackets, not cool,man, not cool. Not Web
> scale.").

I believe we should be at these conferences, if not because NoSQL
crowd is about to have their own 'query wars' and it will be good to
be near (but on the sidelines of this).


> So, I am interested in your feedback.

will send more thoughts after the weekend.

J


From dflorescu at mac.com  Wed Oct 12 12:09:31 2011
From: dflorescu at mac.com (Daniela Florescu)
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 12:09:31 -0700
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <CADsXk-Zi2FuWf2Mzz_Z=rLMqGkN81KnTMhk7qLODGeKF42o=Ow@mail.gmail.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
	<CADsXk-Zi2FuWf2Mzz_Z=rLMqGkN81KnTMhk7qLODGeKF42o=Ow@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <AD008AEB-6F95-44C3-948D-A639C33B64E4@mac.com>

Thanks James. Looking forward to more ideas:

Actually, to my list I forgot to add

IR conferences. Yet another bunch that I know nothing about,
but I am interested to hear more.

Best regards
Dana





On Oct 12, 2011, at 12:03 PM, James Fuller wrote:

> On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 8:03 PM, Daniela Florescu  
> <dflorescu at mac.com> wrote:
>> Dear all,
>>
>> I am having a problem right now, and I don't know how to solve it.
>>
>> We had over the summer several outstanding students, who did
>> really great research in processing XML and XQuery.
>>
>> Here comes the question. Where can we publish the result of this  
>> research
>>  !?
>
>
> http://www.springer.com/computer/database+management+%26+information+retrieval/book/978-3-642-03554-8
>
> http://www.springer.com/computer/database+management+%26+information+retrieval/book/978-3-540-30951-2
>
> In my mind Balisage is the natural for this, but we could orientate
> things now that we have moved XML Prague to University of Ekonomics
> ... perhaps there is value in a compiled journal from several
> conferences/sources (XML Summer School et al) ?
>
>
>> 2. Database conferences.
>
> I dont think so ... many of these guys are being forced to accept
> polystructured data ... my feeling is this are is probably the logical
> container for these kind of papers.
>
>
>> So they'll not understand the XQuery new work, let alone publish it.
>
> agreed, but I its a pretty broad tent with lots of outlets for
> publishing, some who may consider
>
>> 3. Functional programming conferences (after all, XQuery is a  
>> functional
>> language..). Maybe it's a choice !?
>> I have no experience, but I am interested to hear if anybody else  
>> has.
>
> fp bulk existence is in academic form and perhaps its time to welcome
> xquery 3.0 to them ... they would probably support a language with a
> gentle learning curve, etc.
>
>
>> 4. WWW Conference. Based on my experience, it's such a wide  
>> conference ---
>> it's like a conference on water
>> -- where do you start !? As a result the audience, as well as the  
>> program
>> committee, is interested in widely different
>>  things (and XML/XQuery might not be one of them, and then you are  
>> out of
>> luck)
>
> agreed too broad, but as an activity to get the word out about xquery
> probably useful to attempt to go
>
>> 5. NoSQL conferences. Unfortunately, there are two problems. First,  
>> NoSQL is
>> still not accepted in academic conferences
>> -- they have the same problem as XML itself. And second, they try  
>> to stay
>> away from XML like crazy ("angle brackets, not cool,man, not cool.  
>> Not Web
>> scale.").
>
> I believe we should be at these conferences, if not because NoSQL
> crowd is about to have their own 'query wars' and it will be good to
> be near (but on the sidelines of this).
>
>
>> So, I am interested in your feedback.
>
> will send more thoughts after the weekend.
>
> J


From mrys at microsoft.com  Wed Oct 12 12:15:49 2011
From: mrys at microsoft.com (Michael Rys)
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 19:15:49 +0000
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <AD008AEB-6F95-44C3-948D-A639C33B64E4@mac.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
	<CADsXk-Zi2FuWf2Mzz_Z=rLMqGkN81KnTMhk7qLODGeKF42o=Ow@mail.gmail.com>
	<AD008AEB-6F95-44C3-948D-A639C33B64E4@mac.com>
Message-ID: <B6EEE7426586234DB8B8AEC83A05761706902C02@SN1PRD0302MB099.namprd03.prod.outlook.com>

We used to have the XML Symposium workshop but VLDB did not find room for it this year. 

Actually good research on XML/XQuery still has a chance for getting into SIGMOD/VLDB/ICDE. For example we are going to have a paper at ICDE on XML processing.

But it is harder. If the academic environment is so "anti-XML" at the moment (and Stonebraker has been so since the dawn of time), then how easy is it to get tenure with XML topics anyway? :)

Best regards
Michael

-----Original Message-----
From: talk-bounces at x-query.com [mailto:talk-bounces at x-query.com] On Behalf Of Daniela Florescu
Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2011 12:10 PM
To: James Fuller
Cc: xquery-discuss
Subject: Re: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?

Thanks James. Looking forward to more ideas:

Actually, to my list I forgot to add

IR conferences. Yet another bunch that I know nothing about, but I am interested to hear more.

Best regards
Dana





On Oct 12, 2011, at 12:03 PM, James Fuller wrote:

> On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 8:03 PM, Daniela Florescu <dflorescu at mac.com> 
> wrote:
>> Dear all,
>>
>> I am having a problem right now, and I don't know how to solve it.
>>
>> We had over the summer several outstanding students, who did really 
>> great research in processing XML and XQuery.
>>
>> Here comes the question. Where can we publish the result of this 
>> research  !?
>
>
> http://www.springer.com/computer/database+management+%26+information+r
> etrieval/book/978-3-642-03554-8
>
> http://www.springer.com/computer/database+management+%26+information+r
> etrieval/book/978-3-540-30951-2
>
> In my mind Balisage is the natural for this, but we could orientate 
> things now that we have moved XML Prague to University of Ekonomics 
> ... perhaps there is value in a compiled journal from several 
> conferences/sources (XML Summer School et al) ?
>
>
>> 2. Database conferences.
>
> I dont think so ... many of these guys are being forced to accept 
> polystructured data ... my feeling is this are is probably the logical 
> container for these kind of papers.
>
>
>> So they'll not understand the XQuery new work, let alone publish it.
>
> agreed, but I its a pretty broad tent with lots of outlets for 
> publishing, some who may consider
>
>> 3. Functional programming conferences (after all, XQuery is a 
>> functional language..). Maybe it's a choice !?
>> I have no experience, but I am interested to hear if anybody else 
>> has.
>
> fp bulk existence is in academic form and perhaps its time to welcome 
> xquery 3.0 to them ... they would probably support a language with a 
> gentle learning curve, etc.
>
>
>> 4. WWW Conference. Based on my experience, it's such a wide 
>> conference --- it's like a conference on water
>> -- where do you start !? As a result the audience, as well as the 
>> program committee, is interested in widely different  things (and 
>> XML/XQuery might not be one of them, and then you are out of
>> luck)
>
> agreed too broad, but as an activity to get the word out about xquery 
> probably useful to attempt to go
>
>> 5. NoSQL conferences. Unfortunately, there are two problems. First, 
>> NoSQL is still not accepted in academic conferences
>> -- they have the same problem as XML itself. And second, they try to 
>> stay away from XML like crazy ("angle brackets, not cool,man, not 
>> cool.
>> Not Web
>> scale.").
>
> I believe we should be at these conferences, if not because NoSQL 
> crowd is about to have their own 'query wars' and it will be good to 
> be near (but on the sidelines of this).
>
>
>> So, I am interested in your feedback.
>
> will send more thoughts after the weekend.
>
> J

_______________________________________________
talk at x-query.com
http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk






From mike at saxonica.com  Wed Oct 12 12:16:36 2011
From: mike at saxonica.com (Michael Kay)
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 20:16:36 +0100
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
Message-ID: <4E95E794.6020808@saxonica.com>


>
> But the problem with XML Prague is that it doesn't have (yet) the 
> academic
> "cloud". Students don't get PhDs because they published there, and 
> professors don't get
> tenure. (whether the world is well organized and why doesn't happen is 
> a completely
> different topic -- but that's the reality).

Most academic work is funded by the taxpayer. We don't fund it so that 
academics can earn themselves brownie points and advance their careers, 
we fund it so that society can benefit from the work. Academics who 
pursue the agenda of increasing their citation counts, rather than 
getting their work into practical use, are (a) stealing the taxpayer's 
money, and (b) digging themselves into a career hole where the only work 
they are capable of doing is academic research.

So please don't ask me to advise anyone who wants to pursue this agenda.

One of the great things about the XML field is that academics, product 
developers, and users all talk to each other and attend the same 
conferences. (That's noticeably different from the database field - how 
many users do you see at VLDB?) Let's keep it that way.

Michael Kay
Saxonica

From dflorescu at mac.com  Wed Oct 12 12:33:42 2011
From: dflorescu at mac.com (Daniela Florescu)
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 12:33:42 -0700
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <006201cc890f$f82e9960$e88bcc20$@calldei.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
	<006201cc890f$f82e9960$e88bcc20$@calldei.com>
Message-ID: <3F30CD24-9BAF-4BD5-816A-FB6B69E309E2@mac.com>

David,

On Oct 12, 2011, at 11:51 AM, David Lee wrote:

> Question.
> 1) What are "the other problems" with Balisage ?

I love Balisage. But:

- Too narrowly focused I would think. ( Looks like an old family reunion
-- which is indeed pleasant :-)
( As an example, few people with database background
participate to it. Few people with serious IR background. Few number  
of newcomers
every year, and they are not encouraged when they do)

- Too small, community isn't large enough.

- DNA has little to do with the research community (just check how  
many people are coming from academia in the committee..)

But yes, I enjoy reading the papers in Balisage, too, and I enjoy the
family feeling too when i go there.


> 2) What qualifies as "academic cloud" (clout?).

This I think I understand well enough. I've been a researcher long  
enough.

I would say, the bare minimum requirements:
- publications should be copyrighted (which in XML Prague and Balisage
I am not sure they are)
- that has to be some official affiliation with ACM http://www.acm.org/
- that has to be an official and more rigurous  selection process,  
published
and followed ad literam.
- submissions should be more serious (not only "send us a paragraph  
and we believe
you because we've been knowing you for decades")

But it's a longer discussion.

>
> Way back when I was in collage Software of any kind wasn't considered
> "academic" ... it was considered 'beneath the level' of any true  
> academic

Yes, but things changed. And it's time they change for XML too.

> ... which is probably why I dont look to PhD's when I'm looking for  
> a good
> software person.

Well, that's a surprising view for me.

( I don't REQUIRE a Phd when I look for a good developer, but nor do I  
disqualify people
because they have one. I am taking my good developers wherever I find  
them. )

If they weren't any software academics,  there would be no software  
professors,
and if there are no software professors, there will be no  software  
students. If there are no students,
there is no critical mass.

Etc. Etc. Etc. The vicious circle.

The major complaint right now for XQuery is: we have enough  
implementations; yet
  there are not enough programmers who know it.

How can we get out of this if we don't teach it ?

There has been a huge amount of work that has been spent by database
people (e.g. Jim Gray) in the 80's before they managed to raise  
traditional databases to the level of
"class being thought in universities". This effort has a large  
correlation with the spread of databases today, obviously.

I think that XML and markup languages would beneficiate  now from a  
similar effort,  or from being thought
in Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, Wisconsin, ETH, Imperial College, etc, etc.

Such classes cannot be thought without a professor, and a professor  
needs to get an official job, and
  for that he needs publications in a community recognized by his  
university peers.

I am judging whether is good , or bad, or evil, or not. But that's how  
it works in practice.

Hence my practical question: how do we get out of here ?


Best regards
Dana












>
> Maybe there simply isn't something the Ivory Tower considers  
> "worthy" in the
> study of XQuery ?
>
> But back to reality ..
> I'd certainly recommend Balisage.   There's been PhD people who have
> published papers there and had official sanctions from their  
> universities to
> do so.  So at least for some combination of people & universities it
> qualifies.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------
> David A. Lee
> dlee at calldei.com
> http://www.xmlsh.org
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: talk-bounces at x-query.com [mailto:talk-bounces at x-query.com] On  
> Behalf
> Of Daniela Florescu
> Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2011 2:04 PM
> To: xquery-discuss
> Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
>
>
> Dear all,
>
> I am having a problem right now, and I don't know how to solve it.
>
> We had over the summer several outstanding students, who did
> really great research in processing XML and XQuery.
>
> Here comes the question. Where can we publish the result of this
> research  !?
>
> 1. I know that there is XML Prague (and that would be my first choice
> given the
> skill of the audience).
>
> But the problem with XML Prague is that it doesn't have (yet) the
> academic
> "cloud". Students don't get PhDs because they published there, and
> professors don't get
> tenure. (whether the world is well organized and why doesn't happen is
> a completely
> different topic -- but that's the reality).
>
> In a CV for an application for a professor position for Stanford  you
> can put it at best in the category:
> hobbies and other activities, despite the fact that the work is
> technically equally challenging, if not more.
>
> Balisage is another option, but has other problems.
>
> 2. Database conferences.
>
> Unfortunately those guys don't understand much about XML. In fact they
> are strongly convinced
> that XML/XQuery is totally dead  (just went to a Stanford professor
> talk that said just that, and Stonebreaker
> says something along the same lines on a regular basis in the NoSQL
> conferences).
>
> So they'll not understand the XQuery new work, let alone publish it.
>
> 3. Functional programming conferences (after all, XQuery is a
> functional language..). Maybe it's a choice !?
> I have no experience, but I am interested to hear if anybody else has.
>
> 4. WWW Conference. Based on my experience, it's such a wide conference
> --- it's like a conference on water
> -- where do you start !? As a result the audience, as well as the  
> program committee, is interested in widely different
>  things (and XML/XQuery might not be one of them, and then you are
> out of luck)
>
> 5. NoSQL conferences. Unfortunately, there are two problems. First,
> NoSQL is still not accepted in academic conferences
> -- they have the same problem as XML itself. And second, they try to  
> stay away from XML like crazy ("angle brackets, not cool,
> man, not cool. Not Web scale.").
>
>
> So, I am interested in your feedback.
>
> - Where is the "research center of gravity" of this community ?
>
> - How can we stimulate young smart researchers to work on interesting
> and hard problems if they cannot value
> this work for their carrier ?
>
> Any feedback appreciated, thanks
> Dana
>
> _______________________________________________
> talk at x-query.com
> http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk
>


From adam.retter at googlemail.com  Wed Oct 12 12:35:07 2011
From: adam.retter at googlemail.com (Adam Retter)
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 20:35:07 +0100
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <CADsXk-Zi2FuWf2Mzz_Z=rLMqGkN81KnTMhk7qLODGeKF42o=Ow@mail.gmail.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
	<CADsXk-Zi2FuWf2Mzz_Z=rLMqGkN81KnTMhk7qLODGeKF42o=Ow@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPK0ici29qW6zWj2+7z4qyvzS7k9AFX8Nk=vLhxH0XC52uTP6Q@mail.gmail.com>

>> 5. NoSQL conferences. Unfortunately, there are two problems. First, NoSQL is
>> still not accepted in academic conferences
>> -- they have the same problem as XML itself. And second, they try to stay
>> away from XML like crazy ("angle brackets, not cool,man, not cool. Not Web
>> scale.").
>
> I believe we should be at these conferences, if not because NoSQL
> crowd is about to have their own 'query wars' and it will be good to
> be near (but on the sidelines of this).

Completely agree. I will bring the pop-corn.



-- 
Adam Retter

skype: adam.retter
tweet: adamretter
http://www.adamretter.org.uk

From dlee at calldei.com  Wed Oct 12 12:54:14 2011
From: dlee at calldei.com (David Lee)
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 15:54:14 -0400
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <3F30CD24-9BAF-4BD5-816A-FB6B69E309E2@mac.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>	<006201cc890f$f82e9960$e88bcc20$@calldei.com>
	<3F30CD24-9BAF-4BD5-816A-FB6B69E309E2@mac.com>
Message-ID: <008901cc8918$b8d048a0$2a70d9e0$@calldei.com>


---- David
> ... which is probably why I dont look to PhD's when I'm looking for  
> a good
> software person.
---- Daniela
Well, that's a surprising view for me.

( I don't REQUIRE a Phd when I look for a good developer, but nor do I  
disqualify people
because they have one. I am taking my good developers wherever I find  
them. )

--------------------------------------------
-- David
I never said I disqualify people for having a PhD but out of the hundreds of
software developers I've interviewed and dozens I've been responsible for
hiring, not a single one would I say having a PhD in any way was a
significant positive contribution to their qualifications or rationale for
hiring them.

In many (but not all) cases I found a direct disconnect between PhD style
education in computer science and between being able to actually write good
software.

-------------------

-- Daniela
If they weren't any software academics,  there would be no software  
professors,
and if there are no software professors, there will be no  software  
students. If there are no students,
there is no critical mass.

Etc. Etc. Etc. The vicious circle.
------------------------------------------------

--- David
Disagree
Some of the greatest software developers in the world have had no formal
education.
Many more have had formal education in non-software fields.
I'm not opposed to Academia, but I do not agree its necessarily the best way
to produce good Software developers, and by no means the only way.   
Improving it would be nice though.    I would LOVE it if having a PhD in
Computer Science actually meant you could write good quality software.   But
in my experience it does not.


----------------------------------------
David A. Lee
dlee at calldei.com
http://www.xmlsh.org







From mpilman at student.ethz.ch  Wed Oct 12 13:14:51 2011
From: mpilman at student.ethz.ch (Markus Pilman)
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 22:14:51 +0200
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <008901cc8918$b8d048a0$2a70d9e0$@calldei.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
	<006201cc890f$f82e9960$e88bcc20$@calldei.com>
	<3F30CD24-9BAF-4BD5-816A-FB6B69E309E2@mac.com>
	<008901cc8918$b8d048a0$2a70d9e0$@calldei.com>
Message-ID: <CAAzbXv9Z-e4OtSwwE0tZ8Ozv+TOLEqrRWcY7jOsxAWegqAtC0Q@mail.gmail.com>

Hello David,

> In many (but not all) cases I found a direct disconnect between PhD style> education in computer science and between being able to actually write good> software.
Funny that this topic arises: I had a discussion with a PhD student
today and we both somehow agreed, that the quality of code decreases
the higher the education gets (I had to debug MySQL - there are
functions with more than 1500 lines of code, functions in custom
storage engines need to set error values in some global variables and
need to return the same error value because the code in the optimizer
uses one error code and the processor the other but if they are not
equal the behavior of the queries is undefined etc). And most of this
code probably got written by PhDs.
And if you look in general into software that was written in
academia... No comment needed here I think. (To all people who want to
kill me now for that statement: I am planning to do a PhD - but for
other reasons than to improve my coding skills - this would be easier
in industry)
> Some of the greatest software developers in the world have had no formal
> education.
Maybe. Were these great developers able to do great products without
relying on the work of Dijkstra, Turing, Wirth, Hoare etc? I highly
doubt that. Without academics there wouldn't be computer science. To
do work in some fields you need a strong background - if you are a
smart person you can learn it by your own, but Universities usually
help. It is like Physics (or any other discipling): Einstein would
probably have been able to be a great physicist without ever visiting
ETH - but may be it would took him more time (also it would have been
much harder to make the world listen to him - or would you read and
proof a paper about a proof of P=NP by someone who does not have any
education?).

Just my 2 cents and sorry for continuing the off topic discussion.

Markus

On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 9:54 PM, David Lee <dlee at calldei.com> wrote:
>
> ---- David
>> ... which is probably why I dont look to PhD's when I'm looking for
>> a good
>> software person.
> ---- Daniela
> Well, that's a surprising view for me.
>
> ( I don't REQUIRE a Phd when I look for a good developer, but nor do I
> disqualify people
> because they have one. I am taking my good developers wherever I find
> them. )
>
> --------------------------------------------
> -- David
> I never said I disqualify people for having a PhD but out of the hundreds of
> software developers I've interviewed and dozens I've been responsible for
> hiring, not a single one would I say having a PhD in any way was a
> significant positive contribution to their qualifications or rationale for
> hiring them.
>
> In many (but not all) cases I found a direct disconnect between PhD style
> education in computer science and between being able to actually write good
> software.
>
> -------------------
>
> -- Daniela
> If they weren't any software academics, ?there would be no software
> professors,
> and if there are no software professors, there will be no ?software
> students. If there are no students,
> there is no critical mass.
>
> Etc. Etc. Etc. The vicious circle.
> ------------------------------------------------
>
> --- David
> Disagree
> Some of the greatest software developers in the world have had no formal
> education.
> Many more have had formal education in non-software fields.
> I'm not opposed to Academia, but I do not agree its necessarily the best way
> to produce good Software developers, and by no means the only way.
> Improving it would be nice though. ? ?I would LOVE it if having a PhD in
> Computer Science actually meant you could write good quality software. ? But
> in my experience it does not.
>
>
> ----------------------------------------
> David A. Lee
> dlee at calldei.com
> http://www.xmlsh.org
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> talk at x-query.com
> http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk
>


From geert.josten at daidalos.nl  Wed Oct 12 13:22:04 2011
From: geert.josten at daidalos.nl (Geert Josten)
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 22:22:04 +0200
Subject: [xquery-talk] [xml-dev] Re: [ANN] Zorba 2.0: complete
 XQuery/XSLT processor (C++, open	source, Apache license)
In-Reply-To: <20111012195520.GF3224@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <20111012195520.GF3224@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <B26C615F8546A84C81165A7BC8BE61A020FC0F9572@EXMBXC01.ms-hosting.nl>

Well, actually there should be some more. You have for certain some parser from Altova, though I don't know the coverage. Also, MarkLogic Server have release XSLT 2.0 support since 4.2. And Google also returns some references to Oracle.

Saxon has a few limitations in the HE version, but to my knowledge only with regard to schema awareness.

I definitely think that supporting XSLT 2.0 helps gain interest. 2.0 is out for several years now. Once you have gotten the hang of 2.0, you don't like going back..

The point of another free/open source XSLT 2.0, next to Saxon would be good as well, but most importantly a fair bit has been done already. XSLT 1.0 relies on XPath 1.0, but since you have XQuery 1.0, you also have XPath 2.0 already available. Having XSLT 1.0 built on top of XPath 2.0 might even play some tricks on you.. (there are some subtle differences between XSLT 1.0 and 2.0 behavior which I think are partly also present in XPath 1.0 v.s. 2.0)

Kind regards,
Geert

-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: John Cowan [mailto:cowan at ccil.org] Namens John Cowan
Verzonden: woensdag 12 oktober 2011 21:55
Aan: xml-dev at lists.xml.org
Onderwerp: [xml-dev] Re: [ANN] Zorba 2.0: complete XQuery/XSLT processor (C++,open source, Apache license)

Daniela Florescu scripsit:

> We are thinking about 2.0, 3.0 support, but we are not sure
> yet. Should we ? That would be more serious investment. If we get such
> feedback, we'll probably do it, but might take a while.
>
> How many XSLT 2.0 and 3.0 processors are out there ? How many people
> use XSLT 1.0 vs. 2.0 ?

Currently, there is only one XSLT 2.0 processor, and that's Saxon.
The full set of XSLT 2.0 features are available only in the commercial
product, so a full open-source XSLT 2.0 would I think be welcomed.
In addition, a second source for an important standard is invaluable.

-- 
John Cowan  cowan at ccil.org  http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Does anybody want any flotsam? / I've gotsam.
Does anybody want any jetsam? / I can getsam.
        --Ogden Nash, No Doctors Today, Thank You

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From rpbourret at rpbourret.com  Wed Oct 12 13:26:15 2011
From: rpbourret at rpbourret.com (Ronald Bourret)
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 13:26:15 -0700
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <008901cc8918$b8d048a0$2a70d9e0$@calldei.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>	<006201cc890f$f82e9960$e88bcc20$@calldei.com>	<3F30CD24-9BAF-4BD5-816A-FB6B69E309E2@mac.com>
	<008901cc8918$b8d048a0$2a70d9e0$@calldei.com>
Message-ID: <4E95F7E7.3020202@rpbourret.com>

Sadly, I agree -- when hiring, I've always viewed a PhD as a strike 
against somebody that needs to be proven otherwise. The problem isn't 
one of intelligence or training, but of culture. In the academic world, 
you get kudos for being clever or new. In the software world, you get 
kudos for solving problems.

An easy example of the difference is illustrated by the toolbar found in 
most GUIs. Whoever thought of this did a tremendous service to the 
software world and made users' lives easier everywhere. But no 
university in the world is going to give anybody any credit for a few 
bitmaps and simple calls to existing APIs.

(XML itself is another good example. From an academic viewpoint, it's a 
rehash of existing technology. From a software standpoint, it's a 
technology rewrite that makes a huge class of previously insoluble 
problems solveable.)

The other problem with the academic world is that as soon as the 
prototype is done and the paper is written, the players are often ready 
to go on to the next big thing. In the software world, that's barely 
arriving at the starting line.

That said, academics does have a place in the software world. When we 
are able to understand the theory behind a given class of applications 
(e.g. parsers), we are able to write better code, and that is a step in 
the software world that is too often overlooked.

-- Ron

David Lee wrote:
> ( I don't REQUIRE a Phd when I look for a good developer, but nor do I  
> disqualify people
> because they have one. I am taking my good developers wherever I find  
> them. )


From Eric.Bloch at marklogic.com  Wed Oct 12 13:28:16 2011
From: Eric.Bloch at marklogic.com (Eric Bloch)
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 13:28:16 -0700
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <CAAzbXv9Z-e4OtSwwE0tZ8Ozv+TOLEqrRWcY7jOsxAWegqAtC0Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
	<006201cc890f$f82e9960$e88bcc20$@calldei.com>
	<3F30CD24-9BAF-4BD5-816A-FB6B69E309E2@mac.com>
	<008901cc8918$b8d048a0$2a70d9e0$@calldei.com>
	<CAAzbXv9Z-e4OtSwwE0tZ8Ozv+TOLEqrRWcY7jOsxAWegqAtC0Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <97DCADE2-FCC2-4BFB-AFB2-527B64D4334B@marklogic.com>

> 
> 
>> In many (but not all) cases I found a direct disconnect between PhD style> education in computer science and between being able to actually write good> software.
> Funny that this topic arises: I had a discussion with a PhD student
> today and we both somehow agreed, that the quality of code decreases
> the higher the education gets

I suspect there's a thesis in there.  Perhaps it's already been done, too.

E



From dlee at calldei.com  Wed Oct 12 13:54:43 2011
From: dlee at calldei.com (David Lee)
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 16:54:43 -0400
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <97DCADE2-FCC2-4BFB-AFB2-527B64D4334B@marklogic.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
	<006201cc890f$f82e9960$e88bcc20$@calldei.com>
	<3F30CD24-9BAF-4BD5-816A-FB6B69E309E2@mac.com>
	<008901cc8918$b8d048a0$2a70d9e0$@calldei.com>
	<CAAzbXv9Z-e4OtSwwE0tZ8Ozv+TOLEqrRWcY7jOsxAWegqAtC0Q@mail.gmail.com>
	<97DCADE2-FCC2-4BFB-AFB2-527B64D4334B@marklogic.com>
Message-ID: <9283D9EC-BF72-400E-838C-DC0B40198D6F@calldei.com>

But where to publish it?


Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 12, 2011, at 4:28 PM, Eric Bloch <Eric.Bloch at marklogic.com> wrote:

> 
>> 
>> 
>>> In many (but not all) cases I found a direct disconnect between PhD style> education in computer science and between being able to actually write good> software.
>> Funny that this topic arises: I had a discussion with a PhD student
>> today and we both somehow agreed, that the quality of code decreases
>> the higher the education gets
> 
> I suspect there's a thesis in there.  Perhaps it's already been done, too.
> 
> E
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> talk at x-query.com
> http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk


From dflorescu at mac.com  Wed Oct 12 15:15:41 2011
From: dflorescu at mac.com (daniela florescu)
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 15:15:41 -0700
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <008901cc8918$b8d048a0$2a70d9e0$@calldei.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
	<006201cc890f$f82e9960$e88bcc20$@calldei.com>
	<3F30CD24-9BAF-4BD5-816A-FB6B69E309E2@mac.com>
	<008901cc8918$b8d048a0$2a70d9e0$@calldei.com>
Message-ID: <FAEE5784-A3A3-45D7-A309-667F7031D81B@mac.com>

> 
> If they weren't any software academics,  there would be no software  
> professors,
> and if there are no software professors, there will be no  software  
> students. If there are no students,
> there is no critical mass.
> 
> Etc. Etc. Etc. The vicious circle.
> ------------------------------------------------
> 
> --- David
> Disagree
> Some of the greatest software developers in the world have had no formal
> education.
> Many more have had formal education in non-software fields.

David, that's just funny. In many aspects, maybe that's the reason for the horrible today's IT mess:
"I just throw some stuff up there, some pile of PhP in top of some SQL, in top of some Java, in top
of JSON/XML, in top of of some whatever....... just glue it together somehow ..... It just works."

Until it doesn't anymore.

What can I say. Good luck. I really hope that you live in a house built by someone with  no formal architectural 
education or you drive on highways built by someone with no formal training in building roads,
or  you have a doctor ..... whatever .....(not that I didn't hear about  Buckminster Fuller , but such people are in the large minority).

=====

Dear people on this thread with formal education in software fields,

If you know how to program, and you understand how to build a buffer manager, and a lock manager, and able to calculate 
the complexity of an algorithm,  or how to write an  automatic paralellization algorithm for a functional language, or how to write
 an automatic detection of indexes algorithm, or other mundane stuff like that, there is hope for you.

We'll talk to you, just send us email . 

In the meantime, if we find a way to teach the foundation behind markup languages, functional languages as database queries, 
and other stuff like that, in major universities, that would be awesome.

Best regards
Dana














From dlee at calldei.com  Wed Oct 12 15:34:42 2011
From: dlee at calldei.com (David Lee)
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 18:34:42 -0400
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <FAEE5784-A3A3-45D7-A309-667F7031D81B@mac.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
	<006201cc890f$f82e9960$e88bcc20$@calldei.com>
	<3F30CD24-9BAF-4BD5-816A-FB6B69E309E2@mac.com>
	<008901cc8918$b8d048a0$2a70d9e0$@calldei.com>
	<FAEE5784-A3A3-45D7-A309-667F7031D81B@mac.com>
Message-ID: <2541F2D6-C1C8-4167-87D9-D0BCB8211FDA@calldei.com>

My architect had to pass a state exam.  

Few  of the cs phds  I've interviewed could do ANY of the tasks you quote.  None had to pass an exam in making programs that actually worked 

But many brilliant folks without even a bs could do so  blindfolded.


Let us all toast to the day academia returns to to the point of usefulness.  

In the mean time every year I abuse the Balisage slogan 
"nothing is more practical than 
......   Something thact actually works"

But as James mentioned some greats in the field excelled dispute the institutions,

Im all for education but let us not confuse that with competence



Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 12, 2011, at 6:15 PM, daniela florescu <dflorescu at mac.com> wrote:

> 
>> 
>> If they weren't any software academics,  there would be no software  
>> professors,
>> and if there are no software professors, there will be no  software  
>> students. If there are no students,
>> there is no critical mass.
>> 
>> Etc. Etc. Etc. The vicious circle.
>> ------------------------------------------------
>> 
>> --- David
>> Disagree
>> Some of the greatest software developers in the world have had no formal
>> education.
>> Many more have had formal education in non-software fields.
> 
> David, that's just funny. In many aspects, maybe that's the reason for the horrible today's IT mess:
> "I just throw some stuff up there, some pile of PhP in top of some SQL, in top of some Java, in top
> of JSON/XML, in top of of some whatever....... just glue it together somehow ..... It just works."
> 
> Until it doesn't anymore.
> 
> What can I say. Good luck. I really hope that you live in a house built by someone with  no formal architectural 
> education or you drive on highways built by someone with no formal training in building roads,
> or  you have a doctor ..... whatever .....(not that I didn't hear about  Buckminster Fuller , but such people are in the large minority).
> 
> =====
> 
> Dear people on this thread with formal education in software fields,
> 
> If you know how to program, and you understand how to build a buffer manager, and a lock manager, and able to calculate 
> the complexity of an algorithm,  or how to write an  automatic paralellization algorithm for a functional language, or how to write
> an automatic detection of indexes algorithm, or other mundane stuff like that, there is hope for you.
> 
> We'll talk to you, just send us email . 
> 
> In the meantime, if we find a way to teach the foundation behind markup languages, functional languages as database queries, 
> and other stuff like that, in major universities, that would be awesome.
> 
> Best regards
> Dana
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> talk at x-query.com
> http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk


From dlee at calldei.com  Wed Oct 12 16:01:05 2011
From: dlee at calldei.com (David Lee)
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 19:01:05 -0400
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <2541F2D6-C1C8-4167-87D9-D0BCB8211FDA@calldei.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
	<006201cc890f$f82e9960$e88bcc20$@calldei.com>
	<3F30CD24-9BAF-4BD5-816A-FB6B69E309E2@mac.com>
	<008901cc8918$b8d048a0$2a70d9e0$@calldei.com>
	<FAEE5784-A3A3-45D7-A309-667F7031D81B@mac.com>
	<2541F2D6-C1C8-4167-87D9-D0BCB8211FDA@calldei.com>
Message-ID: <D514C050-00F0-4376-9F3D-14BFD92BED47@calldei.com>

While I'm already dead meat .., I'll bury myself

The entire point of a phd is to narrow your experties to the point you can become an expert in such a narrow field as to be able to contribute something new to human knowledge.
This is valuable to society.  My father was a world renowned phd in civil engineeringing.

The problem is in assuming these skills translate well into creating things people need and want to buy.   In software that's the difference between algorithms and products.
Or theory and engineering,  

Very few great people excel at both,  usually they are at distraction from each other,

IMHO if you seek a job in academia peruse degrees

If you seek a job in industry then learn to build solid architectures and make things work,   It helps a lot if you know theory but only if you can put it into practice 

IMHO the problem in IT these days is people know neither 
They only know frameworks ,...  And not how computers actually work in practice OR how they theoretically work 
It's all legos

Where is the salvation for that?
I don't see it in academia or outside








Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 12, 2011, at 6:34 PM, David Lee <dlee at calldei.com> wrote:

> 
> My architect had to pass a state exam.  
> 
> Few  of the cs phds  I've interviewed could do ANY of the tasks you quote.  None had to pass an exam in making programs that actually worked 
> 
> But many brilliant folks without even a bs could do so  blindfolded.
> 
> 
> Let us all toast to the day academia returns to to the point of usefulness.  
> 
> In the mean time every year I abuse the Balisage slogan 
> "nothing is more practical than 
> ......   Something thact actually works"
> 
> But as James mentioned some greats in the field excelled dispute the institutions,
> 
> Im all for education but let us not confuse that with competence
> 
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> On Oct 12, 2011, at 6:15 PM, daniela florescu <dflorescu at mac.com> wrote:
> 
>> 
>>> 
>>> If they weren't any software academics,  there would be no software  
>>> professors,
>>> and if there are no software professors, there will be no  software  
>>> students. If there are no students,
>>> there is no critical mass.
>>> 
>>> Etc. Etc. Etc. The vicious circle.
>>> ------------------------------------------------
>>> 
>>> --- David
>>> Disagree
>>> Some of the greatest software developers in the world have had no formal
>>> education.
>>> Many more have had formal education in non-software fields.
>> 
>> David, that's just funny. In many aspects, maybe that's the reason for the horrible today's IT mess:
>> "I just throw some stuff up there, some pile of PhP in top of some SQL, in top of some Java, in top
>> of JSON/XML, in top of of some whatever....... just glue it together somehow ..... It just works."
>> 
>> Until it doesn't anymore.
>> 
>> What can I say. Good luck. I really hope that you live in a house built by someone with  no formal architectural 
>> education or you drive on highways built by someone with no formal training in building roads,
>> or  you have a doctor ..... whatever .....(not that I didn't hear about  Buckminster Fuller , but such people are in the large minority).
>> 
>> =====
>> 
>> Dear people on this thread with formal education in software fields,
>> 
>> If you know how to program, and you understand how to build a buffer manager, and a lock manager, and able to calculate 
>> the complexity of an algorithm,  or how to write an  automatic paralellization algorithm for a functional language, or how to write
>> an automatic detection of indexes algorithm, or other mundane stuff like that, there is hope for you.
>> 
>> We'll talk to you, just send us email . 
>> 
>> In the meantime, if we find a way to teach the foundation behind markup languages, functional languages as database queries, 
>> and other stuff like that, in major universities, that would be awesome.
>> 
>> Best regards
>> Dana
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> talk at x-query.com
>> http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk
> 
> _______________________________________________
> talk at x-query.com
> http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk


From mike at saxonica.com  Wed Oct 12 16:22:58 2011
From: mike at saxonica.com (Michael Kay)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2011 00:22:58 +0100
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <D514C050-00F0-4376-9F3D-14BFD92BED47@calldei.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
	<006201cc890f$f82e9960$e88bcc20$@calldei.com>
	<3F30CD24-9BAF-4BD5-816A-FB6B69E309E2@mac.com>
	<008901cc8918$b8d048a0$2a70d9e0$@calldei.com>
	<FAEE5784-A3A3-45D7-A309-667F7031D81B@mac.com>
	<2541F2D6-C1C8-4167-87D9-D0BCB8211FDA@calldei.com>
	<D514C050-00F0-4376-9F3D-14BFD92BED47@calldei.com>
Message-ID: <4E962152.2000108@saxonica.com>


>>
>> Few  of the cs phds  I've interviewed could do ANY of the tasks you quote.  None had to pass an exam in making programs that actually worked
>>
>>
I have to say my experience is the opposite. I've worked with a great 
many software developers who were good at making things, but lacked the 
education to discover the theory of how they ought to be made: they were 
mechanics rather than engineers. As a result I've seen a lot of people 
building things using home-grown invented techniques that were vastly 
inferior to the state of the art available from the research literature. 
Or doing crazy things like trying to parse XML with regular expressions. 
You get something that works most of the time (if you're lucky), but 
often costs a lot more and performs a lot worse than if the designers 
had had a higher level of professional education.

Of course that doesn't mean that everyone with a PhD is a good 
programmer or designer, but most of those I have worked with have been.

Michael Kay
Saxonica

From dlee at calldei.com  Wed Oct 12 16:51:09 2011
From: dlee at calldei.com (David Lee)
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 19:51:09 -0400
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <4E962152.2000108@saxonica.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
	<006201cc890f$f82e9960$e88bcc20$@calldei.com>
	<3F30CD24-9BAF-4BD5-816A-FB6B69E309E2@mac.com>
	<008901cc8918$b8d048a0$2a70d9e0$@calldei.com>
	<FAEE5784-A3A3-45D7-A309-667F7031D81B@mac.com>
	<2541F2D6-C1C8-4167-87D9-D0BCB8211FDA@calldei.com>
	<D514C050-00F0-4376-9F3D-14BFD92BED47@calldei.com>
	<4E962152.2000108@saxonica.com>
Message-ID: <C3A4FA46-B8CB-4260-B4D5-705662E882E3@calldei.com>

Perhaps the us and uk differ substantially in academic philosophy

Sent from my iPad (excuse the terseness) 
David A Lee
dlee at calldei.com


On Oct 12, 2011, at 7:22 PM, Michael Kay <mike at saxonica.com> wrote:

> 
> 
>>> 
>>> Few  of the cs phds  I've interviewed could do ANY of the tasks you quote.  None had to pass an exam in making programs that actually worked
>>> 
>>> 
> I have to say my experience is the opposite. I've worked with a great many software developers who were good at making things, but lacked the education to discover the theory of how they ought to be made: they were mechanics rather than engineers. As a result I've seen a lot of people building things using home-grown invented techniques that were vastly inferior to the state of the art available from the research literature. Or doing crazy things like trying to parse XML with regular expressions. You get something that works most of the time (if you're lucky), but often costs a lot more and performs a lot worse than if the designers had had a higher level of professional education.
> 
> Of course that doesn't mean that everyone with a PhD is a good programmer or designer, but most of those I have worked with have been.
> 
> Michael Kay
> Saxonica
> _______________________________________________
> talk at x-query.com
> http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk


From liam at w3.org  Wed Oct 12 17:08:50 2011
From: liam at w3.org (Liam R E Quin)
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 20:08:50 -0400
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <3F30CD24-9BAF-4BD5-816A-FB6B69E309E2@mac.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
	<006201cc890f$f82e9960$e88bcc20$@calldei.com>
	<3F30CD24-9BAF-4BD5-816A-FB6B69E309E2@mac.com>
Message-ID: <1318464530.29855.85.camel@desktop.barefootcomputing.com>

On Wed, 2011-10-12 at 12:33 -0700, Daniela Florescu wrote:
> David,
> 
> On Oct 12, 2011, at 11:51 AM, David Lee wrote:
> 
> > Question.
> > 1) What are "the other problems" with Balisage ?
> 
> I love Balisage. But:
> 
> - Too narrowly focused I would think. ( Looks like an old family reunion
> -- which is indeed pleasant :-)
> ( As an example, few people with database background
> participate to it. Few people with serious IR background. Few number  
> of newcomers
> every year, and they are not encouraged when they do)

There has been a conscious effort to welcome newcomers this year and
last year.  Agree that it's a fairly small community though.

[...]
> 
> I would say, the bare minimum requirements:
> - publications should be copyrighted (which in XML Prague and Balisage
> I am not sure they are)

For Balisage, copyright remains with the authors; Balisage has authors
sign a non-exclusive publication agreement.

> - that has to be some official affiliation with ACM http://www.acm.org/

No XML conference has this as far as I know.

> - that has to be an official and more rigurous  selection process,  
> published
> and followed ad literam.
> - submissions should be more serious (not only "send us a paragraph  
> and we believe
> you because we've been knowing you for decades")

I think that's the case for Balisage - i.e. a serious peer review
process that's clearly followed; I think less so for XML Prague.

The problem with becoming _too_ "tenure track publishing" academic is
that papers become irrelevant.  This was a real problem with the WWW
conferences in the early 2000s.

On the subject of hiring PhD people as programmers - in general, anyone
who says "ah, this problem is so-and-so's algorithm" without looking too
deeply is likely to write code that implements an algorithm rather than
code that solves a problem.  That's OK in some circumstances (e.g. a
general-purpose library) and not in others (product, consulting...)
because code like
    a_prime := b_prime * a[j] + cos(b[j - a_j])
is impossible to maintain when requirements change.

This generalises (since I'm over-generalising anyway!) to whether the
person sees programming in terms of understanding and modelling an
imperfect and changing world with imperfect tools, or in terms of
precise black-and-white solving-a-mathematical-problem.  I've had better
luck with physicists than with mathematicians.


> The major complaint right now for XQuery is: we have enough  
> implementations; yet
>   there are not enough programmers who know it.
> 
> How can we get out of this if we don't teach it ?

I'd very much like to see a W3C "business group" or even "community
group" of people focussed on providing tutorials, training, examples,
libraries - such things are supposed to be formed by interested W3C
Members... ;)

Where markup is taught and/or studied in universities, as far as I know
it's primarily in terms of rhetoric and text studies, and as part of a
tool for representation of critical editions or taxonomies or
Wittgenstein's notebooks, i.e. firmly in the humanities.

XML bridges the gaps between
. the humanities and the study of text and rhetoric
. the mathematics of annotated trees, graphs, sequences,
  regular grammars
. the computer science of optimisation, storage, complexity theory
. functional programming
etc etc, a lot of interdisciplinary stuff that's really cool and
interesting but that builds bridges where researchers are still busy
building walls.

I don't have an answer - I suspect the answer is that in fact there's a
small piece of the puzzle at lots of different venues, rather than a
single XQuery conference.

Maybe start an ACM SIG??

Liam

-- 
Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/


From steven at semeiosis.org  Wed Oct 12 17:16:54 2011
From: steven at semeiosis.org (Steven Ericsson-Zenith)
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 17:16:54 -0700
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <4E962152.2000108@saxonica.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
	<006201cc890f$f82e9960$e88bcc20$@calldei.com>
	<3F30CD24-9BAF-4BD5-816A-FB6B69E309E2@mac.com>
	<008901cc8918$b8d048a0$2a70d9e0$@calldei.com>
	<FAEE5784-A3A3-45D7-A309-667F7031D81B@mac.com>
	<2541F2D6-C1C8-4167-87D9-D0BCB8211FDA@calldei.com>
	<D514C050-00F0-4376-9F3D-14BFD92BED47@calldei.com>
	<4E962152.2000108@saxonica.com>
Message-ID: <B4E98379-8D22-49F8-A9D0-40C3979079A7@semeiosis.org>


I agree with Michael. Software Engineering is in a deplorable state for these reasons. It has a real impact in the economy because maintenance costs and failure rates are unreasonably high. It compensates by providing work for lower skilled workers prepared to work hard. 

It's tolerated by some (start-up) corporations only because a small team of motivated, productive and hard working bumblers can build stunning and unreasonable corporate financial value. The costs are born by other corporations (and the public) because they know, or can get, nothing better.

We are in a growth phase of new technology usage. It will continue for awhile but it won't go on forever. At some point in the not too distant future Software Engineers will need the skills of Mathematicians (and no, they do not have those skills now). They will need these skills because it is ultimately the only way to manage the increasing complexity.

The fact of the matter is that Ph.D.s often do write less code, and that is often because less is better. It is also because they typically spend more time thinking about the problem in order that they can write less code. If they have the mathematical skills I allude to then the code may never need maintenance (because you will be able to prove that it has the desired properties). But when placed in an environment in which there is an urgency to patch failures or there is a deadline that does not allow time for thought they often can't compete. 

The hacker will be needed as long as we write software this way. But it is the wrong way to write software.

I've been both BTW, I began as an industry hacker long before my Ph.D. - and I've run project teams with both.

Speaking now as an Academic. I use XML, XSLT and XQuery in my research. I do so primarily because system design and programming with schema awareness is a step in the right direction.

With respect,
Steven


On Oct 12, 2011, at 4:22 PM, Michael Kay wrote:

> 
>>> 
>>> Few  of the cs phds  I've interviewed could do ANY of the tasks you quote.  None had to pass an exam in making programs that actually worked
>>> 
>>> 
> I have to say my experience is the opposite. I've worked with a great many software developers who were good at making things, but lacked the education to discover the theory of how they ought to be made: they were mechanics rather than engineers. As a result I've seen a lot of people building things using home-grown invented techniques that were vastly inferior to the state of the art available from the research literature. Or doing crazy things like trying to parse XML with regular expressions. You get something that works most of the time (if you're lucky), but often costs a lot more and performs a lot worse than if the designers had had a higher level of professional education.
> 
> Of course that doesn't mean that everyone with a PhD is a good programmer or designer, but most of those I have worked with have been.
> 
> Michael Kay
> Saxonica
> _______________________________________________
> talk at x-query.com
> http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk



From dlee at calldei.com  Wed Oct 12 17:46:08 2011
From: dlee at calldei.com (David Lee)
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 20:46:08 -0400
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <B4E98379-8D22-49F8-A9D0-40C3979079A7@semeiosis.org>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>	<006201cc890f$f82e9960$e88bcc20$@calldei.com>	<3F30CD24-9BAF-4BD5-816A-FB6B69E309E2@mac.com>	<008901cc8918$b8d048a0$2a70d9e0$@calldei.com>	<FAEE5784-A3A3-45D7-A309-667F7031D81B@mac.com>	<2541F2D6-C1C8-4167-87D9-D0BCB8211FDA@calldei.com>	<D514C050-00F0-4376-9F3D-14BFD92BED47@calldei.com>	<4E962152.2000108@saxonica.com>
	<B4E98379-8D22-49F8-A9D0-40C3979079A7@semeiosis.org>
Message-ID: <007701cc8941$80034800$8009d800$@calldei.com>

Good luck with that.
I'm all for education, especially mathematics (although I actually favor
Asttro physicist over Physicists over Mathematicians in terms of accepting
reality over theory ...)

I remember 25+ years ago when I worked a at a CADCAM company we hired a
fresh grade with an MA in Math.  His one saving grace (why the boss hired
him) was he studied geometric transformations which included as mapping from
Sphere to any shape.  In theory if you could plot a path on a sphere you
could just apply a nice transformation and it would apply to any shape ...
say a cube.
This should have really saved us some serious work when plotting cutting
paths for a CMC machine on bars of metal or wood ... Just compute the sphere
pattern and transform it !  Wow,.

Nice.
Sweet !

well ... something I immediately noted as "obvious" is that when going from
Sphere to Cube there are some practical ramifications for any real device.
Like the really interesting non-linear changes in a cutting tool turning the
90deg corner where the mathematical model shows it a simple point-to-point
transition.

Needless to say he didn't last long (and actually at his choice, he didn't
have the staying power of someone who actually wanted to get real work
done).

Math. Nice.
when it works.   Until then , give me someone who knows the difference
between theory and reality.


-David


----------------------------------------
David A. Lee
dlee at calldei.com
http://www.xmlsh.org


-----Original Message-----
From: talk-bounces at x-query.com [mailto:talk-bounces at x-query.com] On Behalf
Of Steven Ericsson-Zenith
Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2011 8:17 PM
To: Michael Kay
Cc: talk at x-query.com
Subject: Re: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?



I agree with Michael. Software Engineering is in a deplorable state for
these reasons. It has a real impact in the economy because maintenance costs
and failure rates are unreasonably high. It compensates by providing work
for lower skilled workers prepared to work hard. 

It's tolerated by some (start-up) corporations only because a small team of
motivated, productive and hard working bumblers can build stunning and
unreasonable corporate financial value. The costs are born by other
corporations (and the public) because they know, or can get, nothing better.

We are in a growth phase of new technology usage. It will continue for
awhile but it won't go on forever. At some point in the not too distant
future Software Engineers will need the skills of Mathematicians (and no,
they do not have those skills now). They will need these skills because it
is ultimately the only way to manage the increasing complexity.

The fact of the matter is that Ph.D.s often do write less code, and that is
often because less is better. It is also because they typically spend more
time thinking about the problem in order that they can write less code. If
they have the mathematical skills I allude to then the code may never need
maintenance (because you will be able to prove that it has the desired
properties). But when placed in an environment in which there is an urgency
to patch failures or there is a deadline that does not allow time for
thought they often can't compete. 

The hacker will be needed as long as we write software this way. But it is
the wrong way to write software.

I've been both BTW, I began as an industry hacker long before my Ph.D. - and
I've run project teams with both.

Speaking now as an Academic. I use XML, XSLT and XQuery in my research. I do
so primarily because system design and programming with schema awareness is
a step in the right direction.

With respect,
Steven


On Oct 12, 2011, at 4:22 PM, Michael Kay wrote:

> 
>>> 
>>> Few  of the cs phds  I've interviewed could do ANY of the tasks you
quote.  None had to pass an exam in making programs that actually worked
>>> 
>>> 
> I have to say my experience is the opposite. I've worked with a great many
software developers who were good at making things, but lacked the education
to discover the theory of how they ought to be made: they were mechanics
rather than engineers. As a result I've seen a lot of people building things
using home-grown invented techniques that were vastly inferior to the state
of the art available from the research literature. Or doing crazy things
like trying to parse XML with regular expressions. You get something that
works most of the time (if you're lucky), but often costs a lot more and
performs a lot worse than if the designers had had a higher level of
professional education.
> 
> Of course that doesn't mean that everyone with a PhD is a good programmer
or designer, but most of those I have worked with have been.
> 
> Michael Kay
> Saxonica
> _______________________________________________
> talk at x-query.com
> http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk


_______________________________________________
talk at x-query.com
http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk


From steven at semeiosis.org  Wed Oct 12 17:59:58 2011
From: steven at semeiosis.org (Steven Ericsson-Zenith)
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 17:59:58 -0700
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <007701cc8941$80034800$8009d800$@calldei.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
	<006201cc890f$f82e9960$e88bcc20$@calldei.com>
	<3F30CD24-9BAF-4BD5-816A-FB6B69E309E2@mac.com>
	<008901cc8918$b8d048a0$2a70d9e0$@calldei.com>
	<FAEE5784-A3A3-45D7-A309-667F7031D81B@mac.com>
	<2541F2D6-C1C8-4167-87D9-D0BCB8211FDA@calldei.com>
	<D514C050-00F0-4376-9F3D-14BFD92BED47@calldei.com>
	<4E962152.2000108@saxonica.com>
	<B4E98379-8D22-49F8-A9D0-40C3979079A7@semeiosis.org>
	<007701cc8941$80034800$8009d800$@calldei.com>
Message-ID: <E6CBE96D-46B9-4E24-AC1B-B3ADB78C76B0@semeiosis.org>


In fact you miss my point David. Algorithmics and Applied Mathematics is not what I was referring to.

I refer rather to the discipline associated with the task of Software Engineering, Mathematical Methods  (rigorous and systematic) rather than Mathematical insights. The use of Languages and Specifications that have a formal basis. Proofs about programs and their properties etc...

Steven

On Oct 12, 2011, at 5:46 PM, David Lee wrote:

> Good luck with that.
> I'm all for education, especially mathematics (although I actually favor
> Asttro physicist over Physicists over Mathematicians in terms of accepting
> reality over theory ...)
> 
> I remember 25+ years ago when I worked a at a CADCAM company we hired a
> fresh grade with an MA in Math.  His one saving grace (why the boss hired
> him) was he studied geometric transformations which included as mapping from
> Sphere to any shape.  In theory if you could plot a path on a sphere you
> could just apply a nice transformation and it would apply to any shape ...
> say a cube.
> This should have really saved us some serious work when plotting cutting
> paths for a CMC machine on bars of metal or wood ... Just compute the sphere
> pattern and transform it !  Wow,.
> 
> Nice.
> Sweet !
> 
> well ... something I immediately noted as "obvious" is that when going from
> Sphere to Cube there are some practical ramifications for any real device.
> Like the really interesting non-linear changes in a cutting tool turning the
> 90deg corner where the mathematical model shows it a simple point-to-point
> transition.
> 
> Needless to say he didn't last long (and actually at his choice, he didn't
> have the staying power of someone who actually wanted to get real work
> done).
> 
> Math. Nice.
> when it works.   Until then , give me someone who knows the difference
> between theory and reality.
> 
> 
> -David
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------
> David A. Lee
> dlee at calldei.com
> http://www.xmlsh.org
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: talk-bounces at x-query.com [mailto:talk-bounces at x-query.com] On Behalf
> Of Steven Ericsson-Zenith
> Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2011 8:17 PM
> To: Michael Kay
> Cc: talk at x-query.com
> Subject: Re: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
> 
> 
> 
> I agree with Michael. Software Engineering is in a deplorable state for
> these reasons. It has a real impact in the economy because maintenance costs
> and failure rates are unreasonably high. It compensates by providing work
> for lower skilled workers prepared to work hard. 
> 
> It's tolerated by some (start-up) corporations only because a small team of
> motivated, productive and hard working bumblers can build stunning and
> unreasonable corporate financial value. The costs are born by other
> corporations (and the public) because they know, or can get, nothing better.
> 
> We are in a growth phase of new technology usage. It will continue for
> awhile but it won't go on forever. At some point in the not too distant
> future Software Engineers will need the skills of Mathematicians (and no,
> they do not have those skills now). They will need these skills because it
> is ultimately the only way to manage the increasing complexity.
> 
> The fact of the matter is that Ph.D.s often do write less code, and that is
> often because less is better. It is also because they typically spend more
> time thinking about the problem in order that they can write less code. If
> they have the mathematical skills I allude to then the code may never need
> maintenance (because you will be able to prove that it has the desired
> properties). But when placed in an environment in which there is an urgency
> to patch failures or there is a deadline that does not allow time for
> thought they often can't compete. 
> 
> The hacker will be needed as long as we write software this way. But it is
> the wrong way to write software.
> 
> I've been both BTW, I began as an industry hacker long before my Ph.D. - and
> I've run project teams with both.
> 
> Speaking now as an Academic. I use XML, XSLT and XQuery in my research. I do
> so primarily because system design and programming with schema awareness is
> a step in the right direction.
> 
> With respect,
> Steven
> 
> 
> On Oct 12, 2011, at 4:22 PM, Michael Kay wrote:
> 
>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Few  of the cs phds  I've interviewed could do ANY of the tasks you
> quote.  None had to pass an exam in making programs that actually worked
>>>> 
>>>> 
>> I have to say my experience is the opposite. I've worked with a great many
> software developers who were good at making things, but lacked the education
> to discover the theory of how they ought to be made: they were mechanics
> rather than engineers. As a result I've seen a lot of people building things
> using home-grown invented techniques that were vastly inferior to the state
> of the art available from the research literature. Or doing crazy things
> like trying to parse XML with regular expressions. You get something that
> works most of the time (if you're lucky), but often costs a lot more and
> performs a lot worse than if the designers had had a higher level of
> professional education.
>> 
>> Of course that doesn't mean that everyone with a PhD is a good programmer
> or designer, but most of those I have worked with have been.
>> 
>> Michael Kay
>> Saxonica
>> _______________________________________________
>> talk at x-query.com
>> http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> talk at x-query.com
> http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk
> 



From dflorescu at mac.com  Wed Oct 12 22:11:02 2011
From: dflorescu at mac.com (Daniela Florescu)
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 22:11:02 -0700
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <2541F2D6-C1C8-4167-87D9-D0BCB8211FDA@calldei.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
	<006201cc890f$f82e9960$e88bcc20$@calldei.com>
	<3F30CD24-9BAF-4BD5-816A-FB6B69E309E2@mac.com>
	<008901cc8918$b8d048a0$2a70d9e0$@calldei.com>
	<FAEE5784-A3A3-45D7-A309-667F7031D81B@mac.com>
	<2541F2D6-C1C8-4167-87D9-D0BCB8211FDA@calldei.com>
Message-ID: <0F3E41BE-EAE5-4BE8-AE39-57FD14BA1200@mac.com>

>
> Few  of the cs phds  I've interviewed could do ANY of the tasks you  
> quote.  None had to pass an exam in making programs that actually  
> worked

David,

I am not sure if this is the problem of the Phds, or merely the sample  
that came to you for interview.
I had to pass such an exam.

But: I swear. I've seen them. They do exist. They roam freely all over  
the Sillicon Valley. They are all over Google and Facebook.
And they know how to do those things:  automatic parallelization of  
functional languages, automatic detection of indexes, etc.

**ALL**  of that.

Their problem is that they live in a world where working on XML is  
equated with having a lobotomy
("something REALLY bad must have happened to you...!").

Their peers and teachers, and all the other "stonebreakers" of the  
world, and all the other Stanford and Berkeley professors
  keep telling them them that XML is dead, and that if they work on  
XML they'll destroy their brilliant carriers.

That's what happened to me.
(I still have have a set of emails with such content, from "famous"  
experts in the database world, for the fun of others :-)

Even at my (advanced..)  age, it's not easy to take.

But when you are 20-ish something, trying to figure out what to do  
with your carrier, that's really hard.

And it's not their fault.

It's because the "grown-ups" of this community don't care to make any  
compromises to explain to the rest of the world
why the rest of the world should care about markup languages and  
functional programming as an information querying and processing
paradigm.

A world where the selfish: "keep it small -- aka, such that I can  
control it" is the king.

That what my original email was about.

Best regards
Dana




From rpbourret at rpbourret.com  Wed Oct 12 22:31:08 2011
From: rpbourret at rpbourret.com (Ronald Bourret)
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 22:31:08 -0700
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <0F3E41BE-EAE5-4BE8-AE39-57FD14BA1200@mac.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>	<006201cc890f$f82e9960$e88bcc20$@calldei.com>	<3F30CD24-9BAF-4BD5-816A-FB6B69E309E2@mac.com>	<008901cc8918$b8d048a0$2a70d9e0$@calldei.com>	<FAEE5784-A3A3-45D7-A309-667F7031D81B@mac.com>	<2541F2D6-C1C8-4167-87D9-D0BCB8211FDA@calldei.com>
	<0F3E41BE-EAE5-4BE8-AE39-57FD14BA1200@mac.com>
Message-ID: <4E96779C.9060705@rpbourret.com>

This is really interesting. I'm very curious as to why people think XML 
is dead.

All the job descriptions that come across my desk ask for XML. Entering 
XML as a keyword in Monster.com returns "1000+" jobs, which appears to 
be the highest number they'll return. Dice.com says 10803 of its 85033 
jobs ask for XML.

XML has done what we all thought and hoped it might -- become as 
ubiquitous and mundane as ASCII. Or perhaps that's just it: Nobody 
builds academic careers on ASCII.

All I can say is that this shows a remarkable lack of foresight on the 
part of academia. The technical part of the written world is slowly 
migrating to XML and it would seem that the opportunities are boundless 
for finding clever ways to query, assimilate, and build intelligent 
systems on top of all that marked-up text. Perhaps it's just too fuzzy 
for mainstream computer scientists?

-- Ron

Daniela Florescu wrote:
>>
>> Few  of the cs phds  I've interviewed could do ANY of the tasks you 
>> quote.  None had to pass an exam in making programs that actually worked
> 
> David,
> 
> I am not sure if this is the problem of the Phds, or merely the sample 
> that came to you for interview.
> I had to pass such an exam.
> 
> But: I swear. I've seen them. They do exist. They roam freely all over 
> the Sillicon Valley. They are all over Google and Facebook.
> And they know how to do those things:  automatic parallelization of 
> functional languages, automatic detection of indexes, etc.
> 
> **ALL**  of that.
> 
> Their problem is that they live in a world where working on XML is 
> equated with having a lobotomy
> ("something REALLY bad must have happened to you...!").
> 
> Their peers and teachers, and all the other "stonebreakers" of the 
> world, and all the other Stanford and Berkeley professors
>  keep telling them them that XML is dead, and that if they work on XML 
> they'll destroy their brilliant carriers.
> 
> That's what happened to me.
> (I still have have a set of emails with such content, from "famous" 
> experts in the database world, for the fun of others :-)
> 
> Even at my (advanced..)  age, it's not easy to take.
> 
> But when you are 20-ish something, trying to figure out what to do with 
> your carrier, that's really hard.
> 
> And it's not their fault.
> 
> It's because the "grown-ups" of this community don't care to make any 
> compromises to explain to the rest of the world
> why the rest of the world should care about markup languages and 
> functional programming as an information querying and processing
> paradigm.
> 
> A world where the selfish: "keep it small -- aka, such that I can 
> control it" is the king.
> 
> That what my original email was about.
> 
> Best regards
> Dana
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> talk at x-query.com
> http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk
> 
> 
> 
> -----
> No virus found in this message.
> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
> Version: 10.0.1410 / Virus Database: 1522/3948 - Release Date: 10/12/11
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> 

From kennorth at sbcglobal.net  Thu Oct 13 00:17:50 2011
From: kennorth at sbcglobal.net (Ken North)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2011 00:17:50 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <4E96779C.9060705@rpbourret.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
	<006201cc890f$f82e9960$e88bcc20$@calldei.com>
	<3F30CD24-9BAF-4BD5-816A-FB6B69E309E2@mac.com>
	<008901cc8918$b8d048a0$2a70d9e0$@calldei.com>
	<FAEE5784-A3A3-45D7-A309-667F7031D81B@mac.com>
	<2541F2D6-C1C8-4167-87D9-D0BCB8211FDA@calldei.com>
	<0F3E41BE-EAE5-4BE8-AE39-57FD14BA1200@mac.com>
	<4E96779C.9060705@rpbourret.com>
Message-ID: <1318490270.80243.YahooMailRC@web81303.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

> 
> This is really interesting. I'm very curious as to why people think XML is 
>dead.


Ron,

Keep in mind Dana's environment. 

The culture of Silicon Valley is heavily influenced by venture capital and 
people who are looking for The Next Big Thing and its investment potential.

If you approach venture capitalists about an idea for a better XML mousetrap, 
you'll probably hear more of the 'XML is dead' mantra than if you are talking to 
techies and system architects.

From mike at saxonica.com  Thu Oct 13 01:01:00 2011
From: mike at saxonica.com (Michael Kay)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2011 09:01:00 +0100
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <C3A4FA46-B8CB-4260-B4D5-705662E882E3@calldei.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
	<006201cc890f$f82e9960$e88bcc20$@calldei.com>
	<3F30CD24-9BAF-4BD5-816A-FB6B69E309E2@mac.com>
	<008901cc8918$b8d048a0$2a70d9e0$@calldei.com>
	<FAEE5784-A3A3-45D7-A309-667F7031D81B@mac.com>
	<2541F2D6-C1C8-4167-87D9-D0BCB8211FDA@calldei.com>
	<D514C050-00F0-4376-9F3D-14BFD92BED47@calldei.com>
	<4E962152.2000108@saxonica.com>
	<C3A4FA46-B8CB-4260-B4D5-705662E882E3@calldei.com>
Message-ID: <4E969ABC.8000702@saxonica.com>

On 13/10/2011 00:51, David Lee wrote:
> Perhaps the us and uk differ substantially in academic philosophy
>
>
Yes, perhaps. Certainly the UK and Germany differ greatly. In Germany, 
from what I've seen, you need to have academic qualifications to be a 
manager in a technology company; when I worked in Software AG most of 
the senior technical people and managers had doctorates. In the UK, it's 
quite common for the management to feel threatened by, and avoid 
employing, people who are smarter than they are. I think software 
companies in the US put much more effort into hiring high-flyers than 
those in the UK, but in both countries academic qualifications count for 
little.

One traditional difference between the UK and the US, which has been 
diluted but still exists, is that academia in the UK traditionally 
thinks of commerce as rather grubby and undignified, which means that 
the cultural distrust between academia and industry actually applies on 
both sides. There's not nearly enough cross-fertilization. There are 
also far too many people teaching computing in our universities who have 
no industrial experience at all.

Michael Kay
Saxonica

From john.snelson at marklogic.com  Thu Oct 13 02:19:20 2011
From: john.snelson at marklogic.com (John Snelson)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2011 10:19:20 +0100
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <4E96779C.9060705@rpbourret.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>	<006201cc890f$f82e9960$e88bcc20$@calldei.com>	<3F30CD24-9BAF-4BD5-816A-FB6B69E309E2@mac.com>	<008901cc8918$b8d048a0$2a70d9e0$@calldei.com>	<FAEE5784-A3A3-45D7-A309-667F7031D81B@mac.com>	<2541F2D6-C1C8-4167-87D9-D0BCB8211FDA@calldei.com>	<0F3E41BE-EAE5-4BE8-AE39-57FD14BA1200@mac.com>
	<4E96779C.9060705@rpbourret.com>
Message-ID: <4E96AD18.4000107@marklogic.com>

Like Ron says, I would point out that XML is still very much alive and 
thriving in areas where it's indispensable for understanding 
unstructured data[1]. This is possibly a more mundane, "solved" problem 
from an academic perspective - but it doesn't mean that there's not 
massive business value in working with data like that.

I wonder what difference the rise of the "Big Data" meme will have on 
XML. After all, if 80% of the data created is unstructured, then surely 
XML is the obvious way to comprehend that data.

John

[1] or semi-structured data, or document shaped data, or your buzzword 
or choice :-).

On 13/10/11 06:31, Ronald Bourret wrote:
> This is really interesting. I'm very curious as to why people think XML
> is dead.
>
> All the job descriptions that come across my desk ask for XML. Entering
> XML as a keyword in Monster.com returns "1000+" jobs, which appears to
> be the highest number they'll return. Dice.com says 10803 of its 85033
> jobs ask for XML.
>
> XML has done what we all thought and hoped it might -- become as
> ubiquitous and mundane as ASCII. Or perhaps that's just it: Nobody
> builds academic careers on ASCII.
>
> All I can say is that this shows a remarkable lack of foresight on the
> part of academia. The technical part of the written world is slowly
> migrating to XML and it would seem that the opportunities are boundless
> for finding clever ways to query, assimilate, and build intelligent
> systems on top of all that marked-up text. Perhaps it's just too fuzzy
> for mainstream computer scientists?
>
> -- Ron
>
> Daniela Florescu wrote:
>>>
>>> Few  of the cs phds  I've interviewed could do ANY of the tasks you
>>> quote.  None had to pass an exam in making programs that actually worked
>>
>> David,
>>
>> I am not sure if this is the problem of the Phds, or merely the sample
>> that came to you for interview.
>> I had to pass such an exam.
>>
>> But: I swear. I've seen them. They do exist. They roam freely all over
>> the Sillicon Valley. They are all over Google and Facebook.
>> And they know how to do those things:  automatic parallelization of
>> functional languages, automatic detection of indexes, etc.
>>
>> **ALL**  of that.
>>
>> Their problem is that they live in a world where working on XML is
>> equated with having a lobotomy
>> ("something REALLY bad must have happened to you...!").
>>
>> Their peers and teachers, and all the other "stonebreakers" of the
>> world, and all the other Stanford and Berkeley professors
>>   keep telling them them that XML is dead, and that if they work on XML
>> they'll destroy their brilliant carriers.
>>
>> That's what happened to me.
>> (I still have have a set of emails with such content, from "famous"
>> experts in the database world, for the fun of others :-)
>>
>> Even at my (advanced..)  age, it's not easy to take.
>>
>> But when you are 20-ish something, trying to figure out what to do with
>> your carrier, that's really hard.
>>
>> And it's not their fault.
>>
>> It's because the "grown-ups" of this community don't care to make any
>> compromises to explain to the rest of the world
>> why the rest of the world should care about markup languages and
>> functional programming as an information querying and processing
>> paradigm.
>>
>> A world where the selfish: "keep it small -- aka, such that I can
>> control it" is the king.
>>
>> That what my original email was about.
>>
>> Best regards
>> Dana

-- 
John Snelson, Senior Engineer                  http://twitter.com/jpcs
MarkLogic Corporation                         http://www.marklogic.com

From andrew.j.welch at gmail.com  Thu Oct 13 02:34:09 2011
From: andrew.j.welch at gmail.com (Andrew Welch)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2011 10:34:09 +0100
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <4E962152.2000108@saxonica.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
	<006201cc890f$f82e9960$e88bcc20$@calldei.com>
	<3F30CD24-9BAF-4BD5-816A-FB6B69E309E2@mac.com>
	<008901cc8918$b8d048a0$2a70d9e0$@calldei.com>
	<FAEE5784-A3A3-45D7-A309-667F7031D81B@mac.com>
	<2541F2D6-C1C8-4167-87D9-D0BCB8211FDA@calldei.com>
	<D514C050-00F0-4376-9F3D-14BFD92BED47@calldei.com>
	<4E962152.2000108@saxonica.com>
Message-ID: <CAEG2duDvQVgZkdAjOg5St_9o60A_nhjmg72NDiaZ+re5fC+85Q@mail.gmail.com>

>>> Few ?of the cs phds ?I've interviewed could do ANY of the tasks you
>>> quote. ?None had to pass an exam in making programs that actually worked

That reminds me of the Sun Java 1.4 cert exam... that focused on cs
style topics such as bit shifting, whereas 1.5 dropped that in favour
of knowledge of the apis (io for example) - mainly to ensure people
that passed the exam could actually do some 'real world' programming.



-- 
Andrew Welch
http://andrewjwelch.com


From mike at saxonica.com  Thu Oct 13 02:39:37 2011
From: mike at saxonica.com (Michael Kay)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2011 10:39:37 +0100
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <4E96AD18.4000107@marklogic.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>	<006201cc890f$f82e9960$e88bcc20$@calldei.com>	<3F30CD24-9BAF-4BD5-816A-FB6B69E309E2@mac.com>	<008901cc8918$b8d048a0$2a70d9e0$@calldei.com>	<FAEE5784-A3A3-45D7-A309-667F7031D81B@mac.com>	<2541F2D6-C1C8-4167-87D9-D0BCB8211FDA@calldei.com>	<0F3E41BE-EAE5-4BE8-AE39-57FD14BA1200@mac.com>
	<4E96779C.9060705@rpbourret.com> <4E96AD18.4000107@marklogic.com>
Message-ID: <4E96B1D9.1040702@saxonica.com>

On 13/10/2011 10:19, John Snelson wrote:
> Like Ron says, I would point out that XML is still very much alive and 
> thriving in areas where it's indispensable for understanding 
> unstructured data[1]. This is possibly a more mundane, "solved" 
> problem from an academic perspective - but it doesn't mean that 
> there's not massive business value in working with data like that.
>
Clearly the peak for any technology as far as researchers is concerned 
comes years before the peak for product developers, which in turn comes 
years before the peak for usage. Most of the money in software is made 
long after the technology has ceased to be fashionable.

It's a difficult question for research. XML is intellectually a mess; 
many mistakes have been made in areas such as namespaces and schemas; 
there must be a strong temptation if you're an academic to ignore the 
mess and devise something cleaner to work with. But if you take a 
broader perspective, building effective IT systems is all about using 
components that aren't all shiny and new, and if you're going to do 
research that helps us to build more effective IT systems then you can't 
hide your head in the sand and wish that problem away.

Michael Kay
Saxonica

From dlee at calldei.com  Thu Oct 13 03:50:45 2011
From: dlee at calldei.com (David Lee)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2011 06:50:45 -0400
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <0F3E41BE-EAE5-4BE8-AE39-57FD14BA1200@mac.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
	<006201cc890f$f82e9960$e88bcc20$@calldei.com>
	<3F30CD24-9BAF-4BD5-816A-FB6B69E309E2@mac.com>
	<008901cc8918$b8d048a0$2a70d9e0$@calldei.com>
	<FAEE5784-A3A3-45D7-A309-667F7031D81B@mac.com>
	<2541F2D6-C1C8-4167-87D9-D0BCB8211FDA@calldei.com>
	<0F3E41BE-EAE5-4BE8-AE39-57FD14BA1200@mac.com>
Message-ID: <007001cc8995$f6718930$e3549b90$@calldei.com>

Daniela ...
I think your onto something.  I think I've seen a different sample set then
you.
The industry's I've typically been in are not 'exciting' for a person who
has focused on PhD level topics,
they are more pragmatic industries (Healthcare, Manufacturing, Mobile,
Publishing, Advertising).   Where the jobs are more engineering oriented so
we didn't attract the theoretical types ...  I think the only PhD's we
attracted were people who stayed in school because they couldn't handle the
thought of actually getting a job but eventually (in the US at least) once
you get your PhD you either need to enter Academia as a profession or hit
the streets ... we wouldn't be the first choice for anyone who had high
goals of getting a research position.

Also as Mike points out (in a future email) I actually think the US and UK
are more similar then he thinks  in the regards as Academia mutually
disrespecting industry.  At least when I gradated 30 years ago.
I was at a fairly prestigious university (Caltech) and even there was a
schism.   The Engineering dept was looked down on from the "Pure Science"
departments (Physics, Math, Chemistry, Biology).  At that point there was no
CS dept at all (it was hidden in  Engineering and Applied Scientists).
The Pure Scientists (who self-selected themselves as being at the top of the
intellectual tower) believed overall that if their work had any practical
application then it wasn't worthy of study.    The Engineers (even at the
same school) were the bottom of the rung ...  And below that (sadly) were
the women.
My girlfriend at the time (who was in Physics, much more brilliant then I)
was *literally* told by her advisor that she was wasting the school's and
donor's money by being there because once she graduated she'd just get
married and raise a family and never put her skills to use to society.

Anyway what an interesting (to me) digression.
And I'm no closer to having any practical suggestions to your real question.
How to get smart people interesting in doing real work in XML.   I just dont
see Academia as the path to that as others have said, its not at the early
stages of innovation.   So let's compare it to Engineering.   Where do you
get Engineers who come up with better ways to do things like say build cars
or buildings ? Or even make better computers ?     I see these advances
coming mostly from Industry,  and only occasionally from Academia.   Once in
a while you see an advance in Engineering come of a university then industry
takes it up and turns it into something practical.   But I'm sorry that
doesn't help the young person in collage who needs to get research
sanctioned in order to be able to spend time on it.
( any more then it helps me convince my boss to let me work 50% of my time
on research instead of development - and still pay me.   ).
-David


----------------------------------------
David A. Lee
dlee at calldei.com
http://www.xmlsh.org


-----Original Message-----
From: Daniela Florescu [mailto:dflorescu at mac.com] 
Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2011 1:11 AM
To: David Lee
Cc: xquery-discuss
Subject: Re: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?


>
> Few  of the cs phds  I've interviewed could do ANY of the tasks you  
> quote.  None had to pass an exam in making programs that actually  
> worked

David,

I am not sure if this is the problem of the Phds, or merely the sample  
that came to you for interview.
I had to pass such an exam.

But: I swear. I've seen them. They do exist. They roam freely all over  
the Sillicon Valley. They are all over Google and Facebook.
And they know how to do those things:  automatic parallelization of  
functional languages, automatic detection of indexes, etc.

**ALL**  of that.

Their problem is that they live in a world where working on XML is  
equated with having a lobotomy
("something REALLY bad must have happened to you...!").

Their peers and teachers, and all the other "stonebreakers" of the  
world, and all the other Stanford and Berkeley professors
  keep telling them them that XML is dead, and that if they work on  
XML they'll destroy their brilliant carriers.

That's what happened to me.
(I still have have a set of emails with such content, from "famous"  
experts in the database world, for the fun of others :-)

Even at my (advanced..)  age, it's not easy to take.

But when you are 20-ish something, trying to figure out what to do  
with your carrier, that's really hard.

And it's not their fault.

It's because the "grown-ups" of this community don't care to make any  
compromises to explain to the rest of the world
why the rest of the world should care about markup languages and  
functional programming as an information querying and processing
paradigm.

A world where the selfish: "keep it small -- aka, such that I can  
control it" is the king.

That what my original email was about.

Best regards
Dana




From mpilman at student.ethz.ch  Thu Oct 13 09:17:28 2011
From: mpilman at student.ethz.ch (Markus Pilman)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2011 18:17:28 +0200
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <52BA5B0D-6972-4184-99D4-B15C34A0668F@virginia.edu>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
	<006201cc890f$f82e9960$e88bcc20$@calldei.com>
	<3F30CD24-9BAF-4BD5-816A-FB6B69E309E2@mac.com>
	<008901cc8918$b8d048a0$2a70d9e0$@calldei.com>
	<CAAzbXv9Z-e4OtSwwE0tZ8Ozv+TOLEqrRWcY7jOsxAWegqAtC0Q@mail.gmail.com>
	<52BA5B0D-6972-4184-99D4-B15C34A0668F@virginia.edu>
Message-ID: <CAAzbXv_129JgR+r7=Cqp+QyBuT-jAce-RStE0TpBJD7KcNc5jQ@mail.gmail.com>

I would never disagree. I am just disagreeing with David who seems to
be at the position that academia is useless and PhDs are unable to do
anything useful (he really seems to hate PhD people - it seems to be a
personal thing, so no discussion needed).

Markus

On Thu, Oct 13, 2011 at 6:07 PM, Shannon <Shiflett at virginia.edu> wrote:
> On Oct 12, 2011, at 4:14 PM, Markus Pilman wrote:
>
> Without academics there wouldn't be computer science.
>
> True, but to be fair, shouldn't we declare it a team effort? In the '50's,
> computer science did not exist officially at the science-intensive
> institution of MIT--academics in the math department warned people to stay
> away from computers--most people considered the thought that computers
> themselves could actually be a field of study to be ridiculous. The
> unofficial slogan of the math department was, "There's no such thing as
> Computer Science--it's witchcraft." Without Kotok, Gosper, Samson,
> Deutsch--non-academic hackers--McCarthy would not have formed the first CS
> course at MIT. The hackers weren't PhDs, but they shared motivations with
> the academics: To advance the field in order to make contributions to
> humanity. I've been reading Steven Levy's "Hackers"?.


From dlee at calldei.com  Thu Oct 13 09:30:52 2011
From: dlee at calldei.com (David Lee)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2011 12:30:52 -0400
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <CAAzbXv_129JgR+r7=Cqp+QyBuT-jAce-RStE0TpBJD7KcNc5jQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
	<006201cc890f$f82e9960$e88bcc20$@calldei.com>
	<3F30CD24-9BAF-4BD5-816A-FB6B69E309E2@mac.com>
	<008901cc8918$b8d048a0$2a70d9e0$@calldei.com>
	<CAAzbXv9Z-e4OtSwwE0tZ8Ozv+TOLEqrRWcY7jOsxAWegqAtC0Q@mail.gmail.com>
	<52BA5B0D-6972-4184-99D4-B15C34A0668F@virginia.edu>
	<CAAzbXv_129JgR+r7=Cqp+QyBuT-jAce-RStE0TpBJD7KcNc5jQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <00b101cc89c5$7ad31c00$70795400$@calldei.com>

> Markus
I would never disagree. I am just disagreeing with David who seems to
be at the position that academia is useless and PhDs are unable to do
anything useful (he really seems to hate PhD people - it seems to be a
personal thing, so no discussion needed).
--------------


That's not my opinion nor what I said.    I don't hate PhD people. My father was one and some of my best friends are.  I don't hate any of them.   What I'm saying is my experience is that having a PhD *in itself* doesn't necessarily make one more qualified as a Software Developer.   And that often the sorts of skills and mindsets of CS PhD's are not the skills and mindsets needed for writing production quality  software.    Any more than having a PhD in Math makes you necessarily a good accountant.  Or having an PhD in Architecture makes you necessarily any good with a hammer.  That doesn't mean I hate them or that I think the skills have no value.   Its an age-old debate about the role of Acedemia.  Are universities there to create people with skills for industry ? or are they there to create people  with skills in reasearch ?   The skills often do not overlap.

-David



-David





From dflorescu at mac.com  Thu Oct 13 09:36:14 2011
From: dflorescu at mac.com (Daniela Florescu)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2011 09:36:14 -0700
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <CAPK0ici29qW6zWj2+7z4qyvzS7k9AFX8Nk=vLhxH0XC52uTP6Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
	<CADsXk-Zi2FuWf2Mzz_Z=rLMqGkN81KnTMhk7qLODGeKF42o=Ow@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPK0ici29qW6zWj2+7z4qyvzS7k9AFX8Nk=vLhxH0XC52uTP6Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <731FCD8F-BC83-4A8C-8BE5-0186C51F78CE@mac.com>


On Oct 12, 2011, at 12:35 PM, Adam Retter wrote:

>>> 5. NoSQL conferences. Unfortunately, there are two problems.  
>>> First, NoSQL is
>>> still not accepted in academic conferences
>>> -- they have the same problem as XML itself. And second, they try  
>>> to stay
>>> away from XML like crazy ("angle brackets, not cool,man, not cool.  
>>> Not Web
>>> scale.").
>>
>> I believe we should be at these conferences, if not because NoSQL
>> crowd is about to have their own 'query wars' and it will be good to
>> be near (but on the sidelines of this).
>
> Completely agree. I will bring the pop-corn.

Adam, I think we need beer for that discussion. Or even something  
stronger :-)

http://twitter.com/#!/nielsenmb/status/124228491532173312

It's probably not ML's fault. It's only that they use the forbidden X  
word, sheesh ..... :-)

Cheers
Dana

From adam.retter at googlemail.com  Thu Oct 13 11:00:42 2011
From: adam.retter at googlemail.com (Adam Retter)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2011 19:00:42 +0100
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <731FCD8F-BC83-4A8C-8BE5-0186C51F78CE@mac.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
	<CADsXk-Zi2FuWf2Mzz_Z=rLMqGkN81KnTMhk7qLODGeKF42o=Ow@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPK0ici29qW6zWj2+7z4qyvzS7k9AFX8Nk=vLhxH0XC52uTP6Q@mail.gmail.com>
	<731FCD8F-BC83-4A8C-8BE5-0186C51F78CE@mac.com>
Message-ID: <CAPK0icikOzQo8aZfSNNyABGX_rn-qcKw9AO28Q4puiHGG65jvA@mail.gmail.com>

On 13 October 2011 17:36, Daniela Florescu <dflorescu at mac.com> wrote:
>
> On Oct 12, 2011, at 12:35 PM, Adam Retter wrote:
>
>>>> 5. NoSQL conferences. Unfortunately, there are two problems. First,
>>>> NoSQL is
>>>> still not accepted in academic conferences
>>>> -- they have the same problem as XML itself. And second, they try to
>>>> stay
>>>> away from XML like crazy ("angle brackets, not cool,man, not cool. Not
>>>> Web
>>>> scale.").
>>>
>>> I believe we should be at these conferences, if not because NoSQL
>>> crowd is about to have their own 'query wars' and it will be good to
>>> be near (but on the sidelines of this).
>>
>> Completely agree. I will bring the pop-corn.
>
> Adam, I think we need beer for that discussion. Or even something stronger
> :-)

Sure :-)

> http://twitter.com/#!/nielsenmb/status/124228491532173312
>
> It's probably not ML's fault. It's only that they use the forbidden X word,
> sheesh ..... :-)

IMHO - I suspect that it is more that ML is seen as a corporate, heavy
'enterprise' system, whereas some of these new 'upstart' open source
products are perceived as lighter and more agile.




-- 
Adam Retter

skype: adam.retter
tweet: adamretter
http://www.adamretter.org.uk

From adam.retter at googlemail.com  Thu Oct 13 11:23:38 2011
From: adam.retter at googlemail.com (Adam Retter)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2011 19:23:38 +0100
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <00b101cc89c5$7ad31c00$70795400$@calldei.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
	<006201cc890f$f82e9960$e88bcc20$@calldei.com>
	<3F30CD24-9BAF-4BD5-816A-FB6B69E309E2@mac.com>
	<008901cc8918$b8d048a0$2a70d9e0$@calldei.com>
	<CAAzbXv9Z-e4OtSwwE0tZ8Ozv+TOLEqrRWcY7jOsxAWegqAtC0Q@mail.gmail.com>
	<52BA5B0D-6972-4184-99D4-B15C34A0668F@virginia.edu>
	<CAAzbXv_129JgR+r7=Cqp+QyBuT-jAce-RStE0TpBJD7KcNc5jQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<00b101cc89c5$7ad31c00$70795400$@calldei.com>
Message-ID: <CAPK0icivTE09=ChQr3_HhO=WWP9kNm0vf8kwjj_CMC9x40HnfQ@mail.gmail.com>

> I would never disagree. I am just disagreeing with David who seems to
> be at the position that academia is useless and PhDs are unable to do
> anything useful (he really seems to hate PhD people - it seems to be a
> personal thing, so no discussion needed).
> --------------
>
>
> That's not my opinion nor what I said. ? ?I don't hate PhD people. My father was one and some of my best friends are. ?I don't hate any of them. ? What I'm saying is my experience is that having a PhD *in itself* doesn't necessarily make one more qualified as a Software Developer. ? And that often the sorts of skills and mindsets of CS PhD's are not the skills and mindsets needed for writing production quality ?software. ? ?Any more than having a PhD in Math makes you necessarily a good accountant. ?Or having an PhD in Architecture makes you necessarily any good with a hammer. ?That doesn't mean I hate them or that I think the skills have no value. ? Its an age-old debate about the role of Acedemia. ?Are universities there to create people with skills for industry ? or are they there to create people ?with skills in reasearch ? ? The skills often do not overlap.
>

So time for my 2 cents perhaps ;-)

Markus I do think your summary of David's comments is heavy-handed.

David, I do tend to agree with 80% of what you are saying. I think
basically everyone here is pretty much in agreement, but they just
have different definitions of what they are discussing.

Sometime ago I gained an Honours Degree in Computer Science with a
specialism in Software Engineering. I had been developing software for
sometime before embarking on this study, and the only reason I did
embark was because I was assured that I would not get a decent
programming job without an appropriate degree. At the time this
assertion was correct and thats why I needed the bit of paper, perhaps
now its not so true! However, my point, I didnt need this degree to be
a good programmer, I didnt learn anything new or relevant to
real-world Software Engineering during this degree, in fact most of
the content was outdated and outmoded. I did learn how to do well
thought out and executed research, and how to write these ideas up in
a structured manner.

Even so, I believe that academia certainly has its place, in fact if
there is something particularly challenging that I am thinking about
solving then I will almost certainly first start looking for and
reviewing academic papers in the field. BUT, I do this alongside
non-academic publications that have been proven in implementation.

In my experience computing in academia tends to be more on the 'pure'
side of things rather than the 'implementation' side of things,
academics focus more on the philosophy. So in my mind academics are
more in the Computer Science camp and those in the trenches are more
in the Software Engineer camp. This is a generalisation of course and
im sure that exceptions to the rule abound!

The thing that ignited this argument anyway seemed to be David's
assertion that PhDs are not necessarily good Software Engineers. I
would tend to agree. But just because someone has been in the
industry, or has 'experience' also does not make them a good Software
Engineer.

You can have been in the industry for 20 or 30 years and still be crap
at writing software, just like you can come out of  academia after
many years and be crap at writing software.

I believe that good software comes from a balance between Scientist
and Engineer, but MOST importantly from a desire for personal
continuous improvement.

The reason I would tend to agree with David, is that many in academia
are not exposed to enough code and software architecture that is
really out there 'in the wild', so lack instinct.

However a good software developer is a good software developer and I
certainly wouldn't discriminate against a PhD. Rather, I want proof
that the person under review understands and has demonstrable
experience of good software architecture and design, including testing
methodologies and has a good nose for code smells (instinct).


-- 
Adam Retter

skype: adam.retter
tweet: adamretter
http://www.adamretter.org.uk


From kennorth at sbcglobal.net  Thu Oct 13 11:42:55 2011
From: kennorth at sbcglobal.net (Ken North)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2011 11:42:55 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <9BD7E985-6BD0-46F1-9502-9D70A8C18A25@virginia.edu>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
	<006201cc890f$f82e9960$e88bcc20$@calldei.com>
	<3F30CD24-9BAF-4BD5-816A-FB6B69E309E2@mac.com>
	<008901cc8918$b8d048a0$2a70d9e0$@calldei.com>
	<CAAzbXv9Z-e4OtSwwE0tZ8Ozv+TOLEqrRWcY7jOsxAWegqAtC0Q@mail.gmail.com>
	<9BD7E985-6BD0-46F1-9502-9D70A8C18A25@virginia.edu>
Message-ID: <1318531375.95877.YahooMailRC@web81302.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

>>?In the '50's, computer science did not exist officially at the 
>>science-intensive institution of MIT

Although the ACM was founded in 1947, the?first student chapter?wasn't formed 
until 1960.

I once took an assembly language programming class that was taught by someone 
who'd been programming computers in the 1950s.
His descriptions of that era sounded as though programmers were members of a 
small select group or?club. He knew a?'member' in El Paso, a few in Boston and 
D.C. and so on. It sounded like there were so few that he knew most people in 
the US who were programming.

How many computers were there?

The IBM 1401, introduced in 1958, was IBM's most popular?mid-sized computer.?IBM 
sold 13,000 over the next eight years.



?Ken North
________________ 

www.kncomputing.com
Twitter: @knorth2
Digg: knorth2 


From kennorth at sbcglobal.net  Thu Oct 13 11:49:20 2011
From: kennorth at sbcglobal.net (Ken North)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2011 11:49:20 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <1318531375.95877.YahooMailRC@web81302.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
	<006201cc890f$f82e9960$e88bcc20$@calldei.com>
	<3F30CD24-9BAF-4BD5-816A-FB6B69E309E2@mac.com>
	<008901cc8918$b8d048a0$2a70d9e0$@calldei.com>
	<CAAzbXv9Z-e4OtSwwE0tZ8Ozv+TOLEqrRWcY7jOsxAWegqAtC0Q@mail.gmail.com>
	<9BD7E985-6BD0-46F1-9502-9D70A8C18A25@virginia.edu>
	<1318531375.95877.YahooMailRC@web81302.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <1318531760.1120.YahooMailRC@web81307.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

> His descriptions of that era sounded as though programmers were members of a 
> small select group or?club. He knew a?'member' in El Paso, a few in Boston and 

> D.C. and so on. It sounded like there were so few that he knew most people in 
> the US who were programming.

That description refers to his remarks about programming in the early '1950s.



Ken North
________________?
?
www.kncomputing.com
Twitter: @knorth2
?Digg: knorth2 



From gkholman at CraneSoftwrights.com  Thu Oct 13 12:15:17 2011
From: gkholman at CraneSoftwrights.com (G. Ken Holman)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2011 15:15:17 -0400
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?
In-Reply-To: <1318531375.95877.YahooMailRC@web81302.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <F5F7DDD2-C27E-41FA-9054-830B6A70D7CD@mac.com>
	<006201cc890f$f82e9960$e88bcc20$@calldei.com>
	<3F30CD24-9BAF-4BD5-816A-FB6B69E309E2@mac.com>
	<008901cc8918$b8d048a0$2a70d9e0$@calldei.com>
	<CAAzbXv9Z-e4OtSwwE0tZ8Ozv+TOLEqrRWcY7jOsxAWegqAtC0Q@mail.gmail.com>
	<9BD7E985-6BD0-46F1-9502-9D70A8C18A25@virginia.edu>
	<1318531375.95877.YahooMailRC@web81302.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20111013145219.0247fa20@wheresmymailserver.com>

At 2011-10-13 11:42 -0700, Ken North wrote:
> >> In the '50's, computer science did not exist officially at the
> >>science-intensive institution of MIT
>
>Although the ACM was founded in 1947, the first student chapter wasn't formed
>until 1960.
>
>I once took an assembly language programming class that was taught by someone
>who'd been programming computers in the 1950s.
>His descriptions of that era sounded as though programmers were members of a
>small select group or club. He knew a 'member' in El Paso, a few in 
>Boston and
>D.C. and so on. It sounded like there were so few that he knew most people in
>the US who were programming.
>
>How many computers were there?
>
>The IBM 1401, introduced in 1958, was IBM's most popular mid-sized 
>computer. IBM
>sold 13,000 over the next eight years.

A 1401 was the first computer I programmed on ... in FORTRAN 4 
(WATFIV) ... I still remember the day:  June 30, 1971.  I can't 
believe that was over 40 years ago.

I don't have a PhD, and for my undergraduate degree I didn't do very 
well in any of the classes related to grammars and parsing and such 
because I was more interested in real-time programming and 
programming languages.

But I did learn "how to learn computer science (and other topics)" 
and I did learn "how to apply what you learn in computer science (and 
other topics)" and I've had a successful career in XML because of 
having those skills to get me started.  I graduated before SGML was 
finalized and didn't hear about SGML until 10 years after it was standardized.

I still don't how to write XML processors or XSLT processors 
"properly" from scratch, but I know how to apply them and get results 
for my customers.  I like to think some of my accomplishments for my 
customers and for my standards volunteer work in the XML arena would 
have earned me a PhD somewhere for original thinking of how to use 
these technologies, though I'll never know and I wouldn't want that 
bubble burst so please don't tell me I'm wrong to think that.

I think demonstrated "ability to learn" is more important than a 
shopping list of "computer languages I've read in the 
past".  Academia isn't the only place where one learns how to learn, 
but I'm probably disposed to think a graduate has had more guidance 
in doing so.

I can't expect a graduate (or non-graduate) to know an XML vocabulary 
I've just published publicly as part of a standard, but I can expect 
them, whatever their background, to figure out what it does and how 
to work with it.

. . . . . . . . . . . . Ken

--
Contact us for world-wide XML consulting and instructor-led training
Crane Softwrights Ltd.            http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/q/
G. Ken Holman                   mailto:gkholman at CraneSoftwrights.com
Google+ profile: https://plus.google.com/116832879756988317389/about
Legal business disclaimers:    http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/legal


From dflorescu at mac.com  Thu Oct 13 16:28:45 2011
From: dflorescu at mac.com (Daniela Florescu)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2011 16:28:45 -0700
Subject: [xquery-talk] can't stop laughing ;-)))
Message-ID: <5023DE84-6FA1-4CFA-8413-3426420B3E38@mac.com>

Every time I stumble over this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql2TLTsilo8

(while I am looking for serious XQuery ones, obviously...)

I find it way more funny then other ones !!

Dana



From kennorth at sbcglobal.net  Thu Oct 13 17:04:50 2011
From: kennorth at sbcglobal.net (Ken North)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2011 17:04:50 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [xquery-talk]  OT: can't stop laughing ;-)))
In-Reply-To: <5023DE84-6FA1-4CFA-8413-3426420B3E38@mac.com>
References: <5023DE84-6FA1-4CFA-8413-3426420B3E38@mac.com>
Message-ID: <1318550690.27225.YahooMailRC@web81304.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

> Every time I stumble over this
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql2TLTsilo8
> 

This interview?reminded of the finish line interview in 1980 at the Boston 
Marathon with an?infamous imposter named Rosie Ruiz. She jumped aboard a subway 
to ride several miles. The she hopped off?to finish the race and was initially 
thought to be the winner.

Ruis?was initially credited with a time of 2 hours 31 minutes for the marathon 
(26.2 miles) and supposedly beat a world-class field of women. The interviewer 
noted it had been a short time since she'd been credited with a 2:52 at the New 
York Marathon. Then she asked how Ruiz had?been able to improve so dramatically 
in such a short time - had she hired a coach and been doing some?interval 
training? 


Ruiz replied "What's interval training? I don't know what that is." 

It wasn't exactly an answer you'd expect from someone who just defeated the best 
women marathoners on the planet.


From kennorth at sbcglobal.net  Thu Oct 13 20:15:41 2011
From: kennorth at sbcglobal.net (Ken North)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2011 20:15:41 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [xquery-talk] PhD's ... a happy ending (I hope)
In-Reply-To: <2CAACE7C-B520-43B2-AD1A-7E63AE77BE49@semeiosis.org>
References: <011501cc8a10$34448f80$9ccdae80$@calldei.com>
	<2CAACE7C-B520-43B2-AD1A-7E63AE77BE49@semeiosis.org>
Message-ID: <1318562141.36029.YahooMailRC@web81302.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

>Matt Might is a good example of a Ph.D. who has a long term commitment to both 
>writing great code and to producing Ph.D.s that write great code.

My nominee: Dr. William Cohen, who wrote the WHIRL search engine when he was at 
AT&T. He now teaches at Carnegie Mellon University.

Here's his presentation at?the LinkedData Planet conference.

"Using Machine Learning to Discover and Understand Structured Data"
http://www.linkeddatasummit.com/read/MachineLearning.pdf


From dflorescu at mac.com  Thu Oct 13 22:40:47 2011
From: dflorescu at mac.com (Daniela Florescu)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2011 22:40:47 -0700
Subject: [xquery-talk] PhD's ... a happy ending (I hope)
In-Reply-To: <1318562141.36029.YahooMailRC@web81302.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <011501cc8a10$34448f80$9ccdae80$@calldei.com>
	<2CAACE7C-B520-43B2-AD1A-7E63AE77BE49@semeiosis.org>
	<1318562141.36029.YahooMailRC@web81302.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <92EE2F26-5C61-44FD-B525-5E1143323CC0@mac.com>


On Oct 13, 2011, at 8:15 PM, Ken North wrote:

>> Matt Might is a good example of a Ph.D. who has a long term  
>> commitment to both
>> writing great code and to producing Ph.D.s that write great code.
>
> My nominee: Dr. William Cohen,

+1 for that choice.


Dana



From christian.gruen at gmail.com  Fri Oct 14 12:45:56 2011
From: christian.gruen at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Christian_Gr=FCn?=)
Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2011 21:45:56 +0200
Subject: [xquery-talk] [ANN] BaseX 7.0
Message-ID: <CAP94bnM1WN+v57WP6ZPSapU3vN6Fce6xbPLrRVGiKjUjSLD6=A@mail.gmail.com>

Dear all,

thanks everyone for your support! We are more than excited to announce
BaseX 7.0, the best version we have released so far. Once more, it
includes quite a bunch of new features:

STORAGE: Files of any data type can now be stored in BaseX in their
raw representation. This means that BaseX can now be used as a
full-fledged storage system. Next, millions of documents can now be
added faster than ever before.

APIs: We have rewritten our HTTP services: Our REST implementation has
been integrated much more tightly in the core system. It can be used
to query XML data, retrieve binary resources, and send database
commands. A new WebDAV API provides access to the database via your
file system, oXygen and various other clients. The classical clients
(available for 10 different programming languages) have been extended
and sped up.

XQUERY: Numerous modules have been added to process all kinds of data
formats via XQuery: JSON documents can be parsed and serialized, SQL
databases can be queried, XSLT cryptographics functions are available
to encrypt data and use XML signatures. Our database module has been
extended to facilitate the storage and modification of database
resources.

FULL-TEXT: We now offer tokenization and stemming support for 21
different natural languages, including Japanese (thanks to Toshio
HIRAI!). Next, we have further optimized the internals of our
retrieval features of BaseX.

We hope you have fun with our latest release, and we're looking
forward to your feedback!

Christian
BaseX Team
__________________________________

BaseX Team
Uni KN, Box 188
D-78457 Konstanz
http://www.basex.org

From dflorescu at mac.com  Fri Oct 14 14:32:53 2011
From: dflorescu at mac.com (Daniela Florescu)
Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2011 14:32:53 -0700
Subject: [xquery-talk] JSON query processing
Message-ID: <1B558C86-90CA-4F16-B66F-8C9E4AB7FF26@mac.com>

Dear XML friends,

if, like me, find XML really useful, but think that for certain (data- 
oriented) applications it's an overkill,
and JSON would be way more appropriate, please join the newly created  
group.

http://www.linkedin.com/groups/JSON-Query-Processing-4130918?gid=4130918&goback=%2Enmp_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1&trk=NUS_DIG_JGRPC-gname

Best regards
Dana

P.S. the first one who has the courage to say that XML and JSON should  
co-exist
non only peacefully, but in close harmony, has all my respects. (I  
think so,  but I didn't dare to  say it publicly  :-)

P.S. 2  If you think the opposite, that JSON  should break free from  
thousands of pages of XML specifications,
and run ....don't be shy ! I think everybody would understand that  
point of view, too :-)





From liam at w3.org  Fri Oct 14 22:05:50 2011
From: liam at w3.org (Liam R E Quin)
Date: Sat, 15 Oct 2011 01:05:50 -0400
Subject: [xquery-talk] [xml-dev] JSON query processing
In-Reply-To: <1B558C86-90CA-4F16-B66F-8C9E4AB7FF26@mac.com>
References: <1B558C86-90CA-4F16-B66F-8C9E4AB7FF26@mac.com>
Message-ID: <1318655150.32067.19.camel@desktop.barefootcomputing.com>

On Fri, 2011-10-14 at 14:32 -0700, Daniela Florescu wrote:
> Dear XML friends,
> 
> if, like me, find XML really useful, but think that for certain (data- 
> oriented) applications it's an overkill,
> and JSON would be way more appropriate, please join the newly created  
> group.
> 
> http://www.linkedin.com/groups/JSON-Query-Processing-4130918?gid=4130918&goback=%2Enmp_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1&trk=NUS_DIG_JGRPC-gname
> 
> Best regards
> Dana
> 
> P.S. the first one who has the courage to say that XML and JSON should  
> co-exist
> non only peacefully, but in close harmony, has all my respects. (I  
> think so,  but I didn't dare to  say it publicly  :-)

I'll happily say it, but I'd far rather see a W3C community group than a
linked-in group.



-- 
Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/
Ankh: irc.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org www.advogato.org


From adam.retter at googlemail.com  Sat Oct 15 02:50:47 2011
From: adam.retter at googlemail.com (Adam Retter)
Date: Sat, 15 Oct 2011 10:50:47 +0100
Subject: [xquery-talk] JSON query processing
In-Reply-To: <CADVu73MSn8oQ2phtZSjoOvLK8Mba3VzMpNRyYkOV-29oA5QPJg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1B558C86-90CA-4F16-B66F-8C9E4AB7FF26@mac.com>
	<CADVu73MSn8oQ2phtZSjoOvLK8Mba3VzMpNRyYkOV-29oA5QPJg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPK0icgMEn6CeAyr8=VDhsKi3tb-oyAywpVyry8=-MtqiUKzJA@mail.gmail.com>

> I will say it. I think JSON is a nice syntax and can be more compact and
> readable than XML.

I disagree on the readable part!

For example, if you have a large amount or JSON and a large amount of
XML and neither have been formatted, in the worst case all your JSON
or XML its all on one like, this is still the same valid JSON or XML.
However if you start trying to read through this without either
manually paginating or putting it through a formatting tool, I would
argue that it is easier to keep track of context when reading the XML
as a human, because the closing tags have the name repeated in them,
whereas JSON does not.

This is a fundamental difference in purpose, XML is designed to be
Human Readable, on the other hand JSON is as the name tells you is a
notation for JavaScript objects and is designed to be easily parsed.

> Last I looked (which was a while ago), they did not have
> any standard means of specification (like XSD), so that needs to be fixed.

Why, you dont need schemata in JavaScript for you object notation, the
JSON itself is both the definition of the shape and the shape itself
(content).

>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> talk at x-query.com
>> http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> talk at x-query.com
> http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk
>



-- 
Adam Retter

skype: adam.retter
tweet: adamretter
http://www.adamretter.org.uk

From adam.retter at googlemail.com  Sat Oct 15 02:52:57 2011
From: adam.retter at googlemail.com (Adam Retter)
Date: Sat, 15 Oct 2011 10:52:57 +0100
Subject: [xquery-talk] JSON query processing
In-Reply-To: <012001cc8ad2$b2601bb0$17205310$@calldei.com>
References: <1B558C86-90CA-4F16-B66F-8C9E4AB7FF26@mac.com>
	<CADVu73MSn8oQ2phtZSjoOvLK8Mba3VzMpNRyYkOV-29oA5QPJg@mail.gmail.com>
	<012001cc8ad2$b2601bb0$17205310$@calldei.com>
Message-ID: <CAPK0icgrizQ1x=GA+Fvq2OAa_1iGxZQrBcF3zTJG-RCms3Fk9Q@mail.gmail.com>

> While my presentation balisage this year was on this topic exactly - how to
> get JSON and XML to be nice friends ...
>
> http://www.balisage.net/Proceedings/vol7/html/Lee01/BalisageVol7-Lee01.html

Very interesting!
Did you address the issue of XML with mixed content typically found in
more document based approaches, e.g. <p>hello <b>world</b> its a nice
day</p>, I scanned the paper but not come across an example. I may
have missed something?

> I am somewhat concerned about "Fixing" JSON by adding things XML has (like
> XSD, XSLT etc ...)
>
> by the time we add everything to JSON to make as useful as XML it will be as
> complicated as XML,
>
> and then we'll be having discussions about "Micro JSON".

Indeed.

>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------
>
> David A. Lee
>
> dlee at calldei.com
>
> http://www.xmlsh.org
>
>
>
> From: talk-bounces at x-query.com [mailto:talk-bounces at x-query.com] On Behalf
> Of Francis Upton
> Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011 6:10 PM
> To: xquery-discuss Talk
> Subject: Re: [xquery-talk] JSON query processing
>
>
>
> P.S. the first one who has the courage to say that XML and JSON should
> co-exist
> non only peacefully, but in close harmony, has all my respects. (I think so,
> ?but I didn't dare to ?say it publicly ?:-)
>
> I will say it. I think JSON is a nice syntax and can be more compact and
> readable than XML. Last I looked (which was a while ago), they did not have
> any standard means of specification (like XSD), so that needs to be fixed.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> talk at x-query.com
> http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> talk at x-query.com
> http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk
>



-- 
Adam Retter

skype: adam.retter
tweet: adamretter
http://www.adamretter.org.uk


From adam.retter at googlemail.com  Sat Oct 15 03:08:37 2011
From: adam.retter at googlemail.com (Adam Retter)
Date: Sat, 15 Oct 2011 11:08:37 +0100
Subject: [xquery-talk] JSON query processing
In-Reply-To: <1B558C86-90CA-4F16-B66F-8C9E4AB7FF26@mac.com>
References: <1B558C86-90CA-4F16-B66F-8C9E4AB7FF26@mac.com>
Message-ID: <CAPK0ichS5hoZczqszzyi6z9y=2n9+rJJ+PZhYE0rW=m3u_VB5g@mail.gmail.com>

> P.S. the first one who has the courage to say that XML and JSON should
> co-exist
> non only peacefully, but in close harmony, has all my respects. (I think so,
> ?but I didn't dare to ?say it publicly ?:-)
>
> P.S. 2 ?If you think the opposite, that JSON ?should break free from
> thousands of pages of XML specifications,
> and run ....don't be shy ! I think everybody would understand that point of
> view, too :-)

Of course! XML and JSON should co-exist, they solve different
problems! Yes there is some overlap at times where you could choose
one or the other, but usually there is a clear advantage in using the
correct one at the correct time.

However, I dont think that one should be constrained by the other. You
dont want to impose XML like specifications onto JSON because its the
wrong thing to do. You also dont want to bring JSON into XML
specifications because its the wrong thing to do. They both have their
place.

I tend to feel that some XML folks have this feeling that 'its the end
of days' because of the growing popularity of JSON. Thats not the
case, both have their applications.

If you are working with JavaScript either client-side or server-side
and you need to push a Java object over the network or you want to
push some data into JavaScript then JSON is the way to go, regardless
of if you started with XML.

If you want to provide a human-readable document or document-set for
either content delivery, or disparate systems interoperability then
XML is the way to go. Yes there is great tooling around XML, but
perhaps that is because XML is a document format, and instead JSON is
a object notation for JavaScript. So the scope of XML, or at least the
initial design scope of XML was larger than that of JSON, sure the
boundaries are changing though...

But more interestingly surely is not whether its JSON or XML, but how
you model your data? I dont look at some data and immediately see XML,
I first consider if its tree shaped, if so then XML is probably a good
fit, its its not tree shaped then I have to ask myself, is XML still
the best fit for this?
What I am getting at is that, JSON and XML are just
serialisations/presentations/organisations of the data, at the end of
the day in your XML database or JSON database, these things are not
stored as pure-XML or pure-JSON they are converted down into bespoke
efficient binary structures either on-disk or in-memory for
processing. When these are retrieved we can deliver them as either XML
or JSON providing the original complete semantics of the data were
correctly encoded.

I think David's and others work on creating bi-directional mappings
between XML and JSON are the way to go, these are the really useful
specification and tools that we need for interoperability.



-- 
Adam Retter

skype: adam.retter
tweet: adamretter
http://www.adamretter.org.uk


From dlee at calldei.com  Sat Oct 15 05:25:33 2011
From: dlee at calldei.com (David Lee)
Date: Sat, 15 Oct 2011 08:25:33 -0400
Subject: [xquery-talk] JSON query processing
In-Reply-To: <CAPK0icgrizQ1x=GA+Fvq2OAa_1iGxZQrBcF3zTJG-RCms3Fk9Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1B558C86-90CA-4F16-B66F-8C9E4AB7FF26@mac.com>	<CADVu73MSn8oQ2phtZSjoOvLK8Mba3VzMpNRyYkOV-29oA5QPJg@mail.gmail.com>	<012001cc8ad2$b2601bb0$17205310$@calldei.com>
	<CAPK0icgrizQ1x=GA+Fvq2OAa_1iGxZQrBcF3zTJG-RCms3Fk9Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <01cf01cc8b35$8a6a94b0$9f3fbe10$@calldei.com>

I discussed mixed content briefly but alas not to mine or anyone's satisfaction.
JSON simply doesn't model it cleanly so any translation of XML mixed content to JSON which preserves the structure is inherently ugly.  But OTOH the 'natural' way for JSON to do mixed content does map well to the eventual object structure.

<p>This is <b>Bold</b></p>   

{"p" : [ "This Is " , { "b" : "Bold" } ] }


In practice what I've seen is people embedding yet another markup within JSON.
Where I work it is common to use HTML.  Because the JSON is really just a bit of meta data describing HTML in these apps.  So it would be

{ "content" : "<p>This is <b>Bold</b></p>" }

this is obviously preferable to simply sending XML or HTML in the first place  (don't ask ... :P)




 

----------------------------------------
David A. Lee
dlee at calldei.com
http://www.xmlsh.org

-----Original Message-----
From: talk-bounces at x-query.com [mailto:talk-bounces at x-query.com] On Behalf Of Adam Retter
Sent: Saturday, October 15, 2011 5:53 AM
To: David Lee
Cc: xquery-discuss Talk; Francis Upton
Subject: Re: [xquery-talk] JSON query processing

> While my presentation balisage this year was on this topic exactly - how to
> get JSON and XML to be nice friends ...
>
> http://www.balisage.net/Proceedings/vol7/html/Lee01/BalisageVol7-Lee01.html

Very interesting!
Did you address the issue of XML with mixed content typically found in
more document based approaches, e.g. <p>hello <b>world</b> its a nice
day</p>, I scanned the paper but not come across an example. I may
have missed something?

> I am somewhat concerned about "Fixing" JSON by adding things XML has (like
> XSD, XSLT etc ...)
>
> by the time we add everything to JSON to make as useful as XML it will be as
> complicated as XML,
>
> and then we'll be having discussions about "Micro JSON".

Indeed.

>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------
>
> David A. Lee
>
> dlee at calldei.com
>
> http://www.xmlsh.org
>
>
>
> From: talk-bounces at x-query.com [mailto:talk-bounces at x-query.com] On Behalf
> Of Francis Upton
> Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011 6:10 PM
> To: xquery-discuss Talk
> Subject: Re: [xquery-talk] JSON query processing
>
>
>
> P.S. the first one who has the courage to say that XML and JSON should
> co-exist
> non only peacefully, but in close harmony, has all my respects. (I think so,
>  but I didn't dare to  say it publicly  :-)
>
> I will say it. I think JSON is a nice syntax and can be more compact and
> readable than XML. Last I looked (which was a while ago), they did not have
> any standard means of specification (like XSD), so that needs to be fixed.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> talk at x-query.com
> http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> talk at x-query.com
> http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk
>



-- 
Adam Retter

skype: adam.retter
tweet: adamretter
http://www.adamretter.org.uk

_______________________________________________
talk at x-query.com
http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk



From geert.josten at daidalos.nl  Sat Oct 15 06:55:22 2011
From: geert.josten at daidalos.nl (Geert Josten)
Date: Sat, 15 Oct 2011 15:55:22 +0200
Subject: [xquery-talk] JSON query processing
In-Reply-To: <1B558C86-90CA-4F16-B66F-8C9E4AB7FF26@mac.com>
References: <1B558C86-90CA-4F16-B66F-8C9E4AB7FF26@mac.com>
Message-ID: <B26C615F8546A84C81165A7BC8BE61A020FC9204AD@EXMBXC01.ms-hosting.nl>

About your P.S.: funny you mention it. There will be a discussion during lunch at XMLAmsterdam conference about that very topic!

:-)

-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: talk-bounces at x-query.com [mailto:talk-bounces at x-query.com] Namens Daniela Florescu
Verzonden: vrijdag 14 oktober 2011 23:33
Aan: xquery-discuss Talk; xml-dev at lists.xml.org
Onderwerp: [xquery-talk] JSON query processing

Dear XML friends,

if, like me, find XML really useful, but think that for certain (data- 
oriented) applications it's an overkill,
and JSON would be way more appropriate, please join the newly created  
group.

http://www.linkedin.com/groups/JSON-Query-Processing-4130918?gid=4130918&goback=%2Enmp_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1&trk=NUS_DIG_JGRPC-gname

Best regards
Dana

P.S. the first one who has the courage to say that XML and JSON should  
co-exist
non only peacefully, but in close harmony, has all my respects. (I  
think so,  but I didn't dare to  say it publicly  :-)

P.S. 2  If you think the opposite, that JSON  should break free from  
thousands of pages of XML specifications,
and run ....don't be shy ! I think everybody would understand that  
point of view, too :-)




_______________________________________________
talk at x-query.com
http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk


From adam.retter at googlemail.com  Sat Oct 15 08:10:39 2011
From: adam.retter at googlemail.com (Adam Retter)
Date: Sat, 15 Oct 2011 15:10:39 +0000
Subject: [xquery-talk] JSON query processing
In-Reply-To: <CADVu73Om0JYBi2iy9FbZ62Ds56tOcvAQP7FHhniqe7yGsLtU3g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1B558C86-90CA-4F16-B66F-8C9E4AB7FF26@mac.com>
	<CADVu73MSn8oQ2phtZSjoOvLK8Mba3VzMpNRyYkOV-29oA5QPJg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPK0icgMEn6CeAyr8=VDhsKi3tb-oyAywpVyry8=-MtqiUKzJA@mail.gmail.com>
	<CADVu73Om0JYBi2iy9FbZ62Ds56tOcvAQP7FHhniqe7yGsLtU3g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPK0icgRUmz9Jid0zQ-PxMefxqjdRG8XUVG8Nf7hzHEBm3ZneA@mail.gmail.com>

>> > Last I looked (which was a while ago), they did not have
>> > any standard means of specification (like XSD), so that needs to be
>> > fixed.
>>
>> Why, you dont need schemata in JavaScript for you object notation, the
>> JSON itself is both the definition of the shape and the shape itself
>> (content).
>>
> Schemas are useful for tools, like data transformation tools. If you have a
> service that requires JSON and you wish to map other data to it's call or
> return values, then it's useful to describe what the service consumes and
> produces in some way so that you can graphically create a mapping. With XML
> you can do this by having the XSD. However, even with XML this is a problem
> with many REST services as they don't have a means of providing the schemas.

How about WADL + XML Schema?
http://www.w3.org/Submission/wadl/

> Francis Upton
> Oakland Software
> francis at oaklandsoftware.com



-- 
Adam Retter

skype: adam.retter
tweet: adamretter
http://www.adamretter.org.uk

From mike at saxonica.com  Sat Oct 15 10:22:14 2011
From: mike at saxonica.com (Michael Kay)
Date: Sat, 15 Oct 2011 18:22:14 +0100
Subject: [xquery-talk] JSON query processing
In-Reply-To: <CAPK0icgRUmz9Jid0zQ-PxMefxqjdRG8XUVG8Nf7hzHEBm3ZneA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1B558C86-90CA-4F16-B66F-8C9E4AB7FF26@mac.com>
	<CADVu73MSn8oQ2phtZSjoOvLK8Mba3VzMpNRyYkOV-29oA5QPJg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPK0icgMEn6CeAyr8=VDhsKi3tb-oyAywpVyry8=-MtqiUKzJA@mail.gmail.com>
	<CADVu73Om0JYBi2iy9FbZ62Ds56tOcvAQP7FHhniqe7yGsLtU3g@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPK0icgRUmz9Jid0zQ-PxMefxqjdRG8XUVG8Nf7hzHEBm3ZneA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4E99C146.4080704@saxonica.com>

On 15/10/2011 16:10, Adam Retter wrote:
>>>> Last I looked (which was a while ago), they did not have
>>>> any standard means of specification (like XSD), so that needs to be
>>>> fixed.
>>> Why, you dont need schemata in JavaScript for you object notation, the
>>> JSON itself is both the definition of the shape and the shape itself
>>> (content).
>>>
>> Schemas are useful for tools, like data transformation tools.

More than this, a schema is a specification and a contract. If you're 
interchanging data with a business partner, or within a business 
community, you need a specification of what data you intend to 
interchange and you need a way of validating that the data conforms to 
the specification. If JSON is to move out of its current niche of being 
used to communicate, in effect, between different parts of the same 
application, then it's almost inevitable it will start to acquire some 
of the baggage that makes XML seem so complicated.

Michael Kay
Saxonica

From liam at w3.org  Sat Oct 15 10:58:39 2011
From: liam at w3.org (Liam R E Quin)
Date: Sat, 15 Oct 2011 13:58:39 -0400
Subject: [xquery-talk] Need for schemas   Re:  JSON query processing
In-Reply-To: <7847DF67-9681-464D-B69F-65A53307D953@mac.com>
References: <1B558C86-90CA-4F16-B66F-8C9E4AB7FF26@mac.com>
	<CADVu73MSn8oQ2phtZSjoOvLK8Mba3VzMpNRyYkOV-29oA5QPJg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPK0icgMEn6CeAyr8=VDhsKi3tb-oyAywpVyry8=-MtqiUKzJA@mail.gmail.com>
	<CADVu73Om0JYBi2iy9FbZ62Ds56tOcvAQP7FHhniqe7yGsLtU3g@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPK0icgRUmz9Jid0zQ-PxMefxqjdRG8XUVG8Nf7hzHEBm3ZneA@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E99C146.4080704@saxonica.com>
	<7847DF67-9681-464D-B69F-65A53307D953@mac.com>
Message-ID: <1318701519.32067.68.camel@desktop.barefootcomputing.com>

On Sat, 2011-10-15 at 10:34 -0700, Daniela Florescu wrote:

> Both RDF and JSON suffer from the fact that there is no general and  
> standard way to describe metadata in a contract
> -- and that's why they'll probably NOT be used in places where a  
> contract between the communicating parties is needed:
> e.g. financials, healthcare, military.

healthcare and life sciences are using RDF; OWL and RIF are the
mechanisms here I think.

Agree about XSD and schema.org.

-- 
Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/


From dflorescu at mac.com  Sat Oct 15 11:28:04 2011
From: dflorescu at mac.com (Daniela Florescu)
Date: Sat, 15 Oct 2011 11:28:04 -0700
Subject: [xquery-talk] Need for schemas   Re:  JSON query processing
In-Reply-To: <1318701519.32067.68.camel@desktop.barefootcomputing.com>
References: <1B558C86-90CA-4F16-B66F-8C9E4AB7FF26@mac.com>
	<CADVu73MSn8oQ2phtZSjoOvLK8Mba3VzMpNRyYkOV-29oA5QPJg@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPK0icgMEn6CeAyr8=VDhsKi3tb-oyAywpVyry8=-MtqiUKzJA@mail.gmail.com>
	<CADVu73Om0JYBi2iy9FbZ62Ds56tOcvAQP7FHhniqe7yGsLtU3g@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAPK0icgRUmz9Jid0zQ-PxMefxqjdRG8XUVG8Nf7hzHEBm3ZneA@mail.gmail.com>
	<4E99C146.4080704@saxonica.com>
	<7847DF67-9681-464D-B69F-65A53307D953@mac.com>
	<1318701519.32067.68.camel@desktop.barefootcomputing.com>
Message-ID: <75A3C3BF-0C94-44E9-884B-65D6952414FC@mac.com>


On Oct 15, 2011, at 10:58 AM, Liam R E Quin wrote:

> On Sat, 2011-10-15 at 10:34 -0700, Daniela Florescu wrote:
>
>> Both RDF and JSON suffer from the fact that there is no general and
>> standard way to describe metadata in a contract
>> -- and that's why they'll probably NOT be used in places where a   
>> contract between the communicating parties is needed:
>> e.g. financials, healthcare, military.
>
> healthcare and life sciences are using RDF; OWL and RIF are the
> mechanisms here I think.


Maybe internally (internally, I bet every company uses probably all  
the models
in the book...)

But when they communicate between companies (hospitals, insurances,
etc), I doubt that they do it RDF. Not in my experience at least.

XML is still the way to go -- you need a (complete) standard,  
otherwise you get a law suit
if something gets wrong.

But it's probably a matter of time, until JSON&co get their act  
together and start
standardizing stuff too.

The question is what will they standardize, and how ?

Best
Dana





From dlee at calldei.com  Sat Oct 15 11:51:36 2011
From: dlee at calldei.com (David Lee)
Date: Sat, 15 Oct 2011 14:51:36 -0400
Subject: [xquery-talk] [xml-dev] JSON query processing
In-Reply-To: <20111015133905.45984gxc42k02wy1@webmail.hiwaay.net>
References: <1B558C86-90CA-4F16-B66F-8C9E4AB7FF26@mac.com>
	<1318655150.32067.19.camel@desktop.barefootcomputing.com>
	<20111015133905.45984gxc42k02wy1@webmail.hiwaay.net>
Message-ID: <A2D13F06-CA5F-416F-991A-41A434732917@calldei.com>

Where they are not happy siblings today Is when a consumer demands format A and producer has format B



Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 15, 2011, at 2:39 PM, cbullard at hiwaay.net wrote:

> 
> Maybe I've missed some dustups, but don't they coexist peacefully now?  Harmony is tougher because of overlaps where Javascript dominates but outside the web, there are applications (eg, document-oriented) where JSON is non-existent.
> 
> What is and isn't a document is an old thread but off the web, it's fairly clear.
> 
> len
> 
>>> P.S. the first one who has the courage to say that XML and JSON should
>>> co-exist
>>> non only peacefully, but in close harmony, has all my respects. (I
>>> think so,  but I didn't dare to  say it publicly  :-)
>> 
>> I'll happily say it, but I'd far rather see a W3C community group than a
>> linked-in group.
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________________________________
> 
> XML-DEV is a publicly archived, unmoderated list hosted by OASIS
> to support XML implementation and development. To minimize
> spam in the archives, you must subscribe before posting.
> 
> [Un]Subscribe/change address: http://www.oasis-open.org/mlmanage/
> Or unsubscribe: xml-dev-unsubscribe at lists.xml.org
> subscribe: xml-dev-subscribe at lists.xml.org
> List archive: http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/
> List Guidelines: http://www.oasis-open.org/maillists/guidelines.php


From dlee at calldei.com  Sat Oct 15 16:12:10 2011
From: dlee at calldei.com (David Lee)
Date: Sat, 15 Oct 2011 19:12:10 -0400
Subject: [xquery-talk] [xml-dev] JSON query processing
In-Reply-To: <20111015171121.660316s1nkh0277t@webmail.hiwaay.net>
References: <1B558C86-90CA-4F16-B66F-8C9E4AB7FF26@mac.com>
	<1318655150.32067.19.camel@desktop.barefootcomputing.com>
	<20111015133905.45984gxc42k02wy1@webmail.hiwaay.net>
	<A2D13F06-CA5F-416F-991A-41A434732917@calldei.com>
	<20111015171121.660316s1nkh0277t@webmail.hiwaay.net>
Message-ID: <2289A858-70C1-4028-A222-1C32D95C48EC@calldei.com>

If your app wants JSON and your server sends XML and it works then there is no problem


Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 15, 2011, at 6:11 PM, cbullard at hiwaay.net wrote:

> 
> And that is a problem why?  Is JSON not a registerable type?  Isn't the idea still be conservative what you send and liberal in what you accept?
> 
> len
> 
> Quoting David Lee <dlee at calldei.com>:
> 
>> Where they are not happy siblings today Is when a consumer demands format A and producer has format B
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Sent from my iPhone
>> 
>> On Oct 15, 2011, at 2:39 PM, cbullard at hiwaay.net wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> Maybe I've missed some dustups, but don't they coexist peacefully now?  Harmony is tougher because of overlaps where Javascript dominates but outside the web, there are applications (eg, document-oriented) where JSON is non-existent.
>>> 
>>> What is and isn't a document is an old thread but off the web, it's fairly clear.
>>> 
>>> len
>>> 
>>>>> P.S. the first one who has the courage to say that XML and JSON should
>>>>> co-exist
>>>>> non only peacefully, but in close harmony, has all my respects. (I
>>>>> think so,  but I didn't dare to  say it publicly  :-)
>>>> 
>>>> I'll happily say it, but I'd far rather see a W3C community group than a
>>>> linked-in group.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________________________________
>>> 
>>> XML-DEV is a publicly archived, unmoderated list hosted by OASIS
>>> to support XML implementation and development. To minimize
>>> spam in the archives, you must subscribe before posting.
>>> 
>>> [Un]Subscribe/change address: http://www.oasis-open.org/mlmanage/
>>> Or unsubscribe: xml-dev-unsubscribe at lists.xml.org
>>> subscribe: xml-dev-subscribe at lists.xml.org
>>> List archive: http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/
>>> List Guidelines: http://www.oasis-open.org/maillists/guidelines.php
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________________________________
> 
> XML-DEV is a publicly archived, unmoderated list hosted by OASIS
> to support XML implementation and development. To minimize
> spam in the archives, you must subscribe before posting.
> 
> [Un]Subscribe/change address: http://www.oasis-open.org/mlmanage/
> Or unsubscribe: xml-dev-unsubscribe at lists.xml.org
> subscribe: xml-dev-subscribe at lists.xml.org
> List archive: http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/
> List Guidelines: http://www.oasis-open.org/maillists/guidelines.php


From dlee at calldei.com  Sun Oct 16 06:08:14 2011
From: dlee at calldei.com (David Lee)
Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2011 09:08:14 -0400
Subject: [xquery-talk] [xml-dev] JSON query processing
In-Reply-To: <AD8BE30E-C633-4914-9965-D616769E3CBE@bluezoo.org>
References: <1B558C86-90CA-4F16-B66F-8C9E4AB7FF26@mac.com>
	<1318655150.32067.19.camel@desktop.barefootcomputing.com>
	<20111015133905.45984gxc42k02wy1@webmail.hiwaay.net>
	<A2D13F06-CA5F-416F-991A-41A434732917@calldei.com>
	<20111015171121.660316s1nkh0277t@webmail.hiwaay.net>
	<2289A858-70C1-4028-A222-1C32D95C48EC@calldei.com>
	<AD8BE30E-C633-4914-9965-D616769E3CBE@bluezoo.org>
Message-ID: <004101cc8c04$ab99c140$02cd43c0$@calldei.com>

I suggest you are contradicting yourself.
If it only 'takes 5 minutes' to write such a program in the general case
then why are there so many IT careers based on it ?

Please send me your 5 minute program that solves this problem in the general
case.
Or better yet, publish it so the world can use it, and put those armies of
IT people to use solving non-trivial problems instead of trivial ones.

By 'solves' I suggest that as an axiom you have no control over *either*
side of the equation, the JSON OR the XML.  So you must 'plug the hole' in
the middle, invisibly to either side. I would like to see this trivial
program that converts between an arbitrary JSON structure and an arbitrary
XML structure.


Or if you want a simplier case, take any real world 'schema' in XML or JSON
or JSON-Like.
For example HL7, DocBook, XSLT, XSD,  Google Visualzation ("JSON-Like",
IMHO), Amazons AWS API.    Write a program that converts any
document/message in that schema to a coresponding document in the opposite
markup.
With the feature that the result in the opposite markup should be as close
to "reasonable" as an author experienced in that markup would expect or
write for the same underlying data model and that it is fully reversable. 

You have 5 mintes ... 


----------------------------------------
David A. Lee
dlee at calldei.com
http://www.xmlsh.org

-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Burdess [mailto:dog at bluezoo.org] 
Sent: Sunday, October 16, 2011 5:39 AM
To: David Lee
Cc: cbullard at hiwaay.net; liam at w3.org; Daniela Florescu; xquery-discuss Talk;
xml-dev at lists.xml.org
Subject: Re: [xml-dev] JSON query processing


David Lee wrote:
> If your app wants JSON and your server sends XML and it works then there
is no problem

If you have that degree of variation in expectations, then it's certain you
will need a small program to do the conversion in between. Generally you
have to have this anyway since the schemata tend to differ.

Since it only takes about 5 minutes to write such a program, it's hardly
worth getting het up about. Indeed if we didn't have the need for such
programs, there would be a lot fewer careers to be made in IT.
_______________________________________________________________________

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From dlee at calldei.com  Sun Oct 16 09:40:17 2011
From: dlee at calldei.com (David Lee)
Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2011 12:40:17 -0400
Subject: [xquery-talk] [xml-dev] JSON query processing
In-Reply-To: <CAFtPEJaPOqBRTSfHRaoJns9sh-ctOm3xLzymN675myOhbKPpuQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1B558C86-90CA-4F16-B66F-8C9E4AB7FF26@mac.com>	<1318655150.32067.19.camel@desktop.barefootcomputing.com>	<20111015133905.45984gxc42k02wy1@webmail.hiwaay.net>	<A2D13F06-CA5F-416F-991A-41A434732917@calldei.com>	<20111015171121.660316s1nkh0277t@webmail.hiwaay.net>	<2289A858-70C1-4028-A222-1C32D95C48EC@calldei.com>	<AD8BE30E-C633-4914-9965-D616769E3CBE@bluezoo.org>	<004101cc8c04$ab99c140$02cd43c0$@calldei.com>
	<CAFtPEJaPOqBRTSfHRaoJns9sh-ctOm3xLzymN675myOhbKPpuQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <001401cc8c22$4aa31440$dfe93cc0$@calldei.com>



Alex Says
--------
I would think that JSON would generally be used to represent data
pulled out of a relational database to a website in which case the
structure of this data would be fairly trivial to move between JSON or
XML as suggested.

Which of these examples below are likely candidates for JSON
representation and why?
-=------------------

I disagree with your assumption that JSON is just used to render relational
data to a website.
It may have started out  that way but as the current generation of web
developers have adopted JSON they are starting to use it for *everything*.
Including, IMHO, places where it is entirely unreasonable.
A simple example I see in practice is using JSON strings to encode HTML
because JSON itself cant do mixed content in a pretty way.  Now you have to
have both a JSON parser AND an HTML parser to make sense out of it.   Works
fairly well in a browser where you have both ... but its particularly
tedious to generate and parse in any other environment.




But To answer your questions ... 
Here are a few examples that I think make sense.

HL7:   Since web developers want JSON,  a JSON representation of an HL7
document would be very useful to a EMR application.

XSD:   Would be great if there was the equivalent of XSD for JSON.  There's
a start of a spec but no implementations to my knowledge.  If you can
translate both XSLT *and* the corresponding XML docs to JSON then you  could
use existing XSLT processors to transform JSON without having to re-invent
to world.

 AWS API.  These are a weird blend of XML and JSON. (No idea why ...)   It
would be nice to stick to one markup and have some plumbing that fixes it
all up to whatever AWS wants.
Well that's what the AWS language bindings do ... without them it's a real
pain to use. (and it's a HUGE library).



Google Visualization:   These expect a proprietary version of "JSON-Like"
data for the API.  Truly, it's not really JSON but its kind of close.
(things like Date constructors were added which are not part of JSON).
I'm currently using a XML Database which I am using Google Visualization
API's to graph data.
I had to write a layer to translate from XML to this Google-JSON-like
format, which was not particularly hard, but would have been unnecessary if
there was an automated tool to do it, or if Google API's accepted XML.


----------------------------------------
David A. Lee
dlee at calldei.com
http://www.xmlsh.org





From dflorescu at mac.com  Tue Oct 25 22:02:45 2011
From: dflorescu at mac.com (daniela florescu)
Date: Tue, 25 Oct 2011 22:02:45 -0700
Subject: [xquery-talk] US CIO and XML  (#futurefirst)
Message-ID: <D0DA29BD-66D3-43D5-9B94-D20418DE0743@mac.com>

Wasn't there, but it seems that the US CIO was all about XML in open data government tonight.
http://transition.churchillclub.org/eventDetail.jsp?EVT_ID=924

#futurefirst

Wonder is anyone else heard something more concrete about the topic.

Best
Dana



From harvey at eccnet.com  Wed Oct 26 04:47:19 2011
From: harvey at eccnet.com (Betty Harvey)
Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2011 07:47:19 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [xquery-talk] [SPAM] [xml-dev] US CIO and XML  (#futurefirst)
In-Reply-To: <D0DA29BD-66D3-43D5-9B94-D20418DE0743@mac.com>
References: <D0DA29BD-66D3-43D5-9B94-D20418DE0743@mac.com>
Message-ID: <56714.207.168.47.25.1319629639.squirrel@www.eccnet.com>

I have read several accounts that he is very keen on XML and Drupal.  Both
currently have become an integral part of many government projects.  One
example is www.data.gov is a Drupal application and you will find many XML
datasets on this site.

Betty

> Wasn't there, but it seems that the US CIO was all about XML in open data
> government tonight.
> http://transition.churchillclub.org/eventDetail.jsp?EVT_ID=924
>
> #futurefirst
>
> Wonder is anyone else heard something more concrete about the topic.
>
> Best
> Dana
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
>
> XML-DEV is a publicly archived, unmoderated list hosted by OASIS
> to support XML implementation and development. To minimize
> spam in the archives, you must subscribe before posting.
>
> [Un]Subscribe/change address: http://www.oasis-open.org/mlmanage/
> Or unsubscribe: xml-dev-unsubscribe at lists.xml.org
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> List Guidelines: http://www.oasis-open.org/maillists/guidelines.php
>


/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Betty Harvey                         | Phone:  410-787-9200  FAX: 9830
Electronic Commerce Connection, Inc. |
harvey at eccnet.com                    | Washington,DC XML Users Grp
URL:  http://www.eccnet.com          | http://www.eccnet.com/xmlug
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Member of XML Guild (www.xmlguild.org)

From kennorth at sbcglobal.net  Wed Oct 26 08:47:08 2011
From: kennorth at sbcglobal.net (Ken North)
Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2011 08:47:08 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [xquery-talk] US CIO and XML  (#futurefirst)
In-Reply-To: <56714.207.168.47.25.1319629639.squirrel@www.eccnet.com>
References: <D0DA29BD-66D3-43D5-9B94-D20418DE0743@mac.com>
	<56714.207.168.47.25.1319629639.squirrel@www.eccnet.com>
Message-ID: <1319644028.71816.YahooMailRC@web81301.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

The Open Data initiative put the spotlight on government transparency and we saw 
the creation of the data.gov and data.gov.uk portals.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Professor Nigel Shadbolt were instrumental in creation 
of the UK portal. On this side of the pond,?Professor James Hendler and the 
Tetherless World Constellation at RPI have done work for the data.gov portal, in 
particular publishing linked data sets:

http://data-gov.tw.rpi.edu/wiki


?
?
Ken North
________________ www.kncomputing.com

Twitter: @knorth2


?


----- Original Message ----
> From: Betty Harvey <harvey at eccnet.com>
> To: daniela florescu <dflorescu at mac.com>
> Cc: xml-dev at lists.xml.org; XQuery Talk ML <talk at xquery.com>
> Sent: Wed, October 26, 2011 4:47:19 AM
> Subject: Re: [xquery-talk] [SPAM] [xml-dev] US CIO and XML (#futurefirst)
> 
> I have read several accounts that he is very keen on XML and Drupal.? Both
> currently have become an integral part of many government projects.? One
> example is www.data.gov is a Drupal application and you will find many XML
> datasets on this site.
> 
> Betty
> 
> > Wasn't there, but it seems that the US CIO was all about XML in open data
> > government tonight.
> > http://transition.churchillclub.org/eventDetail.jsp?EVT_ID=924
> >
> > #futurefirst
> >
> > Wonder is anyone else heard something more concrete about the topic.
> >
> > Best
> > Dana
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________________________________
> >
> > XML-DEV is a publicly archived, unmoderated list hosted by OASIS
> > to support XML implementation and development. To minimize
> > spam in the archives, you must subscribe before posting.
> >
> > [Un]Subscribe/change address: http://www.oasis-open.org/mlmanage/
> > Or unsubscribe: xml-dev-unsubscribe at lists.xml.org
> > subscribe: xml-dev-subscribe at lists.xml.org
> > List archive: http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/
> > List Guidelines: http://www.oasis-open.org/maillists/guidelines.php
> >
> 
> 
> /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
> Betty Harvey? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? | Phone:? 410-787-9200? FAX: 9830
> Electronic Commerce Connection, Inc. |
> harvey at eccnet.com? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? | Washington,DC XML Users Grp
> URL:? http://www.eccnet.com? ? ? ? ? | http://www.eccnet.com/xmlug
> /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\\/\/
> Member of XML Guild (www.xmlguild.org)
> _______________________________________________
> talk at x-query.com
> http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk
> 


From helena.galhardas at ist.utl.pt  Mon Oct 31 06:56:10 2011
From: helena.galhardas at ist.utl.pt (Helena Galhardas)
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2011 14:56:10 +0000
Subject: [xquery-talk] XML data sets with (known) data quality problems
Message-ID: <71C52699-2176-4D9D-86D9-BD17914F3D6A@ist.utl.pt>

Dear all,

We?ve been implementing a library of data cleaning functions in XQuery.
The most recent version has been distributed with the last release of  
the
Zorba Query processor.

In order to test exhaustively this library, we need to have XML data  
sets
that have data quality problems.
By data quality problems, we mean: missing values, misspellings,  
synonyms,
values out of domain, approximate duplicates, etc.

We would like to ask you if you are aware of XML data sets in those  
conditions,
that we can use to write data profiling and cleaning programs in XQuery.

Thanks in advance.
Best Regards,
Helena Galhardas