[xquery-talk] XQuery Platform Support

[Michael Kay]

> If I had to have this app out the door next week I would be 
> using XSLT, but luckily it doesn't need to be completed until 
> about 3rd QTR next year. In my opinion XQuery appears to be a 
> bit more powerful with it's built in functions, ability to 
> create user defined functions and it's SQL like FLWR 
> expressions.  I've never been a big fan of the XSLT syntax.
> 
It's your decision, and I certainly haven't got enough information to do
a risk assessment for you, so I won't try.

Syntax considerations are a matter of subjective preference (unless and
until someone does a scientific study of the ergonomics). As with many
other languages, XSLT users typically love the syntax, and non-users
hate it.

But in terms of functionality, XSLT 2.0 is richer than XQuery 1.0. It
does have user-defined functions, and it has constructs that are
equivalent in power to FLWR expressions (with a couple of minor
exceptions in the area of sorting).

If I were asked to choose which language to use for a given project, I
would say without much hesitation: Use XQuery if you accessing
persistent data in a database, use XSLT if you are accessing transient
XML documents in memory.

Michael Kay