[xquery-talk] XQuery Visualization (GUI) for beginners

Michael Kay mhk at mhk.me.uk
Fri Apr 21 12:26:32 PDT 2006


> 
> Sorrry I posted this again.
> 
> I want to make a GUI which can be used to query XML data 

I'm afraid this is the kind of question which often gets a poor response on
any list. If this is what you want to do, then you need to develop the ideas
on how to do it. You're not going to get anyone else to design it for you.
When you've got a design, by all means use the list to test it, with
specific questions for example about whether a particular feature is needed
or not, or whether one approach to defining predicates is better than
another approach. But don't expect people to do creative work for you in
response to a list question.

I personally find visual tools for query (or stylesheet) building very
difficult to use. I can relate to text and syntax, I have been using
language to communicate since infancy. I find it much harder to understand
the meaning of cryptic icons, or of box-and-arrow diagrams. Different
diagrams look so similar, yet have such different semantics. I always want
to know what the arrows actually mean. But there are other people who seem
quite comfortable with them.

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



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