Bob Beauchemin's thoughts on Microsoft client XQuery
Bob recently posted some interesting thoughts about where XQuery on the client is going with the .NET framework.He makes the comparision between XQuery and WSE where talks about using the "add-on model" for XQuery. I think that's a fine idea and hopefully it will go someplace. Bob's idea of getting the community involved in the implementation is particuarily appealing too.
This week at Win-Dev folks "across the hall" were lecturing in earnest about the WSE 2.0 offering. The WSE (web service extension) offerings are supported add-ons, outside of the "core" .NET APIs, and mostly implementations of various WS-* specs-in-progress. They're not guarenteed to be compatible with future offerings or with Indigo, the next generation WS-*++ implementation. In fact, some of the specs that were supported in WSE 1.0 have already completely vanished from the WS-* landscape. There's *way* more churn in this space.
Got me thinking...why not a similar model for XQuery? That is, a supported add-on implementation of the current specification with namespaces that begin with Microsoft.* rather than System.Xml.*. Guarenteed to change, at least subtly, but existing to get folks used to using it. The alternatives, that is, using Saxon.NET or working on a community implementation of XSLT 2.0/XQuery 1.0/XPath 2.0 are already happening. How about it...Microsoft.Xml.Query/Microsoft.Xml.Mapping anyone?
At the same time, due dilligence needs to observed. While its unlikely that the basics of XQuery will change between now and REC status, you might want to keep your use it limited to a middle tier parts that are easier to update rather than having 100 or 1000 time more client machines if something goes awry.
