[xquery-talk] size of XQuery developer community

[James Fuller]

On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 7:52 PM, David A. Lee<dlee at calldei.com> wrote:
> Its *got* to be more then the "100s"

I said between 100's - 1000's of the last few groups

> Just looking at marklogic.com they list 43 customers ... and those are the
> ones they publish.

ml is a relatively small company (100-150 people I think) ... as for
Oracle, MS, Sun I very much doubt that any of these companies have
more then 15-20 people max significantly working on xquery code
generation, and I think the reality is that there will be less then
that, but happy to be corrected.

ml conference was upwards to 400 ... but even of this number the % of
people who actually write xquery code will be less. Balisage was
probably a few hundred, and XML Prague (of which I help run) is less
then 150).

what I have absolutely no feel for is XQuery usage in asia/orient ...
I will take a look at eXist downloads ... wonder if MKay could
comment; I travelled to Beijing last year and spoke with several
programmers none of which were actively engaged in XML technologies,
which surprised me.

> Then there's all the uncountable folks using eXist, xmldb , Saxon etc.
> ( which must outweigh the paying customers by atleast 10x ...)
>

well there are some things we can count like downloads ... goto
sourceforge but there are many more from uncountable sources like
those people using source control to integrate.

I regularly deal with people using eXist and help them sort out issues
... you get familiar of where the XQuery hotspots around the world and
what companies are pouring significant resources towards using XQuery
... its clear that:

* XQuery talent is thin on the ground, I count less then 20-30 people
I would consider experts in XQuery within Europe

* I find many XSLT people are quite handy with XQuery and the two work
together better then expected

* XML database usage is driving adoption

* xquery usage is increasing as need for processing larger data sets,
and perception that other technologies (like XSLT) are too difficult
... XSLT seems to have a 'marmite' type effect on people , who either
u love it or hate it

Jim Fuller