[xquery-talk] Re: The State of Native XML databases

[Ilya Sterin]

Frank...

On 8/21/07, Frank Cohen <fcohen at pushtotest.com> wrote:
> The XML data model is wonderfully rich and flexible. There is big
> divide that developers have to overcome when going from the XML data
> model to an XML database. It is not a given that XQuery is way to
> implement a database for the XML data model. When I was at the W3C
> Plenary 2 years ago there was plenty of energy in discussing
> alternatives to XQuery and XSLT. And I would prefer to write code
> today, not wait another 7 years for a standard like XQuery to emerge.

I can't agree with that.  Some standard is needed for native XML dbs
to emerge as a possible competitor to RDBMS and OODBMS (although this
one is in the same shape as XML dbs:-).  XQuery seems to be the way to
go.  There might be better proposals, but we know how these
standardization efforts go.  What is needed is more play for larger
vendors, then the standardization would go faster.  Although they all
seem interested, they still have quite large investments in the SQL
market and not much benefit to switching their models.

> (By the way, neither work for me
> as a Java developer. I want to from object definitions and maybe Java
> annotations to a collection.)

That's true, but before such can be made available, there has to be
more standardization support for current vendors.  You know from our
XQOM talks that the idea is great, but the fact that there were some
insurmountable implementation difficulties due to the fact that there
is huge lack of portability between most vendors.


> 2) The lack of thought leaders
>
> Where are the Tim Bray's, the Adam Bosworth's, and Erik Meijer's, the
> Sam Ramji's for the native XML database space? I had great hope for
> Jason Hunter but even his star is taking a while to cross over from
> the Java to the native XML db space.

Anyone but Tim please, you already know how much I agree with him:-)

> 4) The lack of a clubhouse
>
> I want a place to meet up with all of you! JavaOne, JavaPolis, JAOO,
> and QCon are my place to meet up, share ideas, and exchange solutions
> in the Java space. I would love to have XMLOne once a year!

Absolutely.

Ilya