[xquery-talk] Screen-scraping with XQuery

[Michael Kay]

> In the following little thread, the author of the original article
> tries to make the point that learning XSLT is hell, and learning
> XQuery is bliss:
> 
>  
> http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/forums/dw_thread.jsp?for
> um=181&thread=77692
> 
> If this is true, this would suggest that developers are extremely
> sensitive to syntax! Or is there another factor? I don't think I agree
> with such as statement statement at this point, but I wonder if this
> opinion is shared.

I've often heard it said that good HTML authors take to XSLT much more
readily than "average" programmers. Certainly, reactions vary enormously,
and I think it's based largely on your previous experience. If you've never
seen SQL, I think you would find XQuery very hard. Some people find the
concept of rule-based programming in XSLT very difficult, but anyone who's
used a rule-based language before finds it comes very naturally. Some people
react to the XML syntax with horror, others see the benefits and put up with
it.

The people who find either language easy, of course, are the dangerous ones:
they're the people who are content to learn a language by trial and error
without trying to master its underlying concepts. We see plenty of those on
the help forums.

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/