> Speaking as someone in the digital humanities community, I am extremely > grateful for the work that has been done on XQuery and on the entire suite > of XML-related W3C technologies (XPath, XSLT, etc.) within the W3C working > groups and by independent developers. As a self-taught programmer without a > computer science background, I can't evaluate the theoretical arguments pro > or against different styles of programming languages; all I know is that in > the practical world, it is almost inconceivable that the projects I have > worked on for the last decade could have been achieved as well as they have > without XQuery and the tools built upon it (notably Saxon, MarkLogic, and > the oXygen editor/IDE). Even if the community of users is small by > comparison with Javascript or Perl or whatever, the impact of projects that > rely on XQuery is, I suspect, much greater than people realize.
Let me second David's sentiments wholeheartedly. I am also a self-taught programmer without a CS background - a historian. I'm convinced that I could not have taken on and accomplished what I have were it not for the high level concerns that XQuery allows me to focus on. I started this work in June 2007, months after XQuery's graduation to recommendation status and 1.0 and the publication of Priscilla Walmsley's book. I daily rely on and thank my lucky stars for tools like eXist-db and oXygen, and the vibrant, generous communities behind XQuery and all the XML-related W3C technologies. In seminars I've given to colleagues and new and seasoned digital humanists about XQuery, one of the most salient arguments that gives students the confidence that they *can* do this is that XQuery lets you focus on your data, and lets you get in and out without being bogged down with all the usual concerns of programming. I think XQuery is a tremendously empowering (dare I say transformational) technology. Joe _______________________________________________ [email protected] http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk
