[xquery-talk] why do you care what other people think ?

[James Fuller]

On Sat, May 18, 2013 at 2:32 AM, daniela florescu <dflorescu at me.com> wrote:
> I have to apologize on this mailing list first for completely scaring one of
> potential XQuery's customers a couple of days back.
> (he never answered back... oups... I will always wonder if he solved his
> problem...)

reach out to him by email and ask ?

> This is not how science works.

XQuery is a unique, cool, interesting and great programming language,
it combines a query language with the power of a stored proc language
in one = GSD, it plays well with my other favorite tool xslt, XQuery
3.0 'fpness' gives me joy when I program (akin to when I spelunked
deeply in Perl) and joy in programming is a rare and wondrous thing.

Practically speaking, xquery generates career paths and with the
market now recognizing that data led decision making is better then
punditry, things look good for xquery (we should be positive about
that). We are living in a time where all the 'oxygen of choice' is
consumed by javascript ... it means we have to expend more energy to
get the word out about this incredibly productive little language.

With the data revolution going, we have a very good chance to
establish a grass roots foundation, which I think is where our efforts
are best focused versus the 'rocket science' end which I think you are
espousing ... we need materials for training (for students and
teachers), we need to tell students about the potential for a career
programming in xquery.

Uche Ogbuji reminded us at last XML Prague to reach out to the digital
humanities folks ... and I think this is an especially relevant group
of people we should be trying to engage; librarians love this little
language.

Daniela you've probably done more to try and make xquery used and
known within the academic community  (number of papers, advocation,
etc) then anyone; its a real achievement and I hear what you are
saying but I don't fully grok what you are proposing. From one angle,
I think your call for 'more science' could be construed as yet another
variation of the desire for 'wide spread adoption'; the book you read
taught you to ignore other people and yet you want more of these
people to use your favorite tool ?

Confused as to what you are concretely proposing, but interested and
will help 'pull the oar' once I understand.

Jim Fuller