Update: So that’s embarassing… It’s obvious now after comparing the pictures side-by-side that, in fact, it was Mike Champion who made the post, not Dr. Michael Rys…

Mike Champion > | < Dr. Michael Rys

I know… I KNOW! It’s clear now, but I’m telling ya, when I made the post, I could have sworn it was the other way around.

What’s sad is that this isn’t the first time I’ve made such an error.

It seems I need to learn how to recognize the difference between the following two sequence of letters:

Rys

Champion

I think its obvious how easily the mistake of mixing one with the other could be made if one is not careful. Apparently, I was not very careful. To my defense (and inherently pathetic attempt at an excuse) you Microsoft people all look and sound the same to me ;) :D

Actually, truth be known, you Microsoft people *REALLY DO* all look the same to me… ;)

Mike Champion > | < Dr. Michael Rys

I’d promise to never make the same mistake again… But the odds are clearly not in my favor. ;-)

Corrections are inline below. Thanks for the clarification, Michael!

[Original Post]

In a recent post to the MSFT XML Team Weblog, Dr. Michael Rys Mike Champion writes,

Microsoft XML Team’s WebLog : Standalone XQuery Implementation in .NET?

We very much wish to hear from our user community about their requirements that could be met with XSLT 2.0 and XQuery 1.0. We announced last week that we are actively working on an XSLT 2.0 implementation. As with XLST 2.0, those needing an implementation of XQuery that runs in the .NET environment may wish to check out the Saxon open source project http://saxon.sf.net or the schema-aware commercial version produced by Saxonica http://www.saxonica.com/products.html. Likewise, those needing query and transformation features over standalone XML files could help us understand whether XSLT 2.0 meets your needs, or if you think XQuery is more suitable.

A bit further down he continues with,

We do recognize, however, that some scenarios require a cross-platform standards based approach and so while we finish up “Orcas” we will be listening to our customers to figure out how to blend of these technologies and create a roadmap for our future products. Some have asked for an XQuery-powered in-memory database with indexes, query plans, an optimizer, etc. Some have asked for something that might be called “LINQ to XQuery” that would provide a LINQ-enabled front end for an XQuery-enabled DBMS, much like what LINQ to SQL provides for an RDBMS. You might have even more interesting ideas for how to combine our technology innovations and the W3C standards to provide high Windows productivity/performance and cross-platform interoperability. We can’t do all of this, but we can focus on the approach that meets the most real-world needs with the time and resources available. Now is a great time to have an influence on those plans, so please don’t hesitate to send your feedback to the XML Team contact page (ed. Hyperlink added) .

It seems to me there are some interesting ideas floating around on how to best go about providing cross-platform XML processing support for the next generation of the .NET platform/tools. For what it’s worth, here’s a snippet regarding my own feelings on the matter recently left as a follow-up comment to Dr. Rys’s Mike Champion’s post,

Similar to the way Saxon provides tightly coupled XSLT 2.0/XPath 2.0/XQuery 1.0 support, it seems to me that it would make a lot of sense to provide this same level of tightly integrated support natively.

To me, anyway, probably the most important aspect of this is not whether or not MSFT should provide XQuery support for stand alone XML docs (I believe you should), and instead, proper documentation and evangelism efforts as to using the right tool for the job, implementing a “Patterns and Practices (ed. Hyperlink added) for XSLT 2.0, XPath 2.0, and XQuery 1.0″ which showcases the proper usage of each technology using a tightly coupled approach to piping together queries and transforms effectively.

Of course, LINQ would need to play into this as well, though obviously LINQ is much more C#/VB.NET-language centric, which seems to me is catered towards a completely different crowd of folks than those in whom would be looking at an XSLT 2.0/XPath 2.0/XQuery 1.0 as a potential solution.

It seems to me that if there were ever a time for voicing your own opinions on such matters in a manner and format that is being keenly watched and listened to, now would be that time, and this would the place. Speaking from past experience, I can assure you that MSFT is *TRULY* paying attention and listening to what the community members have to say, acting appropriately based on the feedback received, so *SPEAK UP* and let your voice be heard! :D

Thanks for opening up the forum, MSFT/Dr. Rys Mike!