[xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?

[Michael Kay]

>
> But the problem with XML Prague is that it doesn't have (yet) the 
> academic
> "cloud". Students don't get PhDs because they published there, and 
> professors don't get
> tenure. (whether the world is well organized and why doesn't happen is 
> a completely
> different topic -- but that's the reality).

Most academic work is funded by the taxpayer. We don't fund it so that 
academics can earn themselves brownie points and advance their careers, 
we fund it so that society can benefit from the work. Academics who 
pursue the agenda of increasing their citation counts, rather than 
getting their work into practical use, are (a) stealing the taxpayer's 
money, and (b) digging themselves into a career hole where the only work 
they are capable of doing is academic research.

So please don't ask me to advise anyone who wants to pursue this agenda.

One of the great things about the XML field is that academics, product 
developers, and users all talk to each other and attend the same 
conferences. (That's noticeably different from the database field - how 
many users do you see at VLDB?) Let's keep it that way.

Michael Kay
Saxonica