Update: As per my follow-up comment to Norm Walsh’s comment below,
NW: >> Obscure? Stole? Mystery? I thought I was fairly candid about why I left and why I joined Mark Logic.
So here’s what happened: I read just the first portion of the entry in my feed reader and assumed that was it. I hadn’t noticed “Sun set” at that point because “Mark Logic” was written afterwards so therefore was at the top of the stack in my inbox.
So it looks like what I had thought was just a one line “I’m now with Mark Logic” post contained a bunch more information than I had realized. Didn’t mean to come across in such a way as to suggest I thought there was some sort of conspiracy, though it seems that’s how it came across. My bad!
Also, as it relates to the usage of obscure ‘XQuery Content’ company,
That’s probably the wrong word. I guess what I’m suggesting is the XQuery market at the moment is still pretty small, so by obscure company I really should have said something more inline with “small niche market industry.”
And lastly, if the back channel rumor mills are correct, my guess is that this isn’t the last big-name XML luminary we’ll see moving over to Mark Logic. Time will tell… ;-) I’ll write a new entry related to this topic if/when it seems appropriate to do so.
[Original Post]
… I’m wondering how in the hell some obscure “XQuery Content” company stole Norm Walsh away from Sun. Y’all know who Norm Walsh is, right?
Anyone care to provide some insight? Is Mark Logic really *that* good?
Makers of an exceptional XQuery engine and XML content platform. And my new employers.
Anybody? ‘Cmon… There’s got to be more to this story than just… [Mystery]?
It's not a matter of being a better company than Sun, only of offering a better opportunity to Norman Walsh.
He left a job he had enough of and he found a job he likes more; it happens to a lot of people, and more easily to luminaries.
The official version at http://norman.walsh.name/2008/04/28/marklogic is vague but believable; do you expect to read the names of people he disliked and which conflict or issue was the last straw?
I've already picked MarkLogic as THE company to watch in the xml database space - they're doing all the right things, they have a good product, and they're thinking long term. I think that this will be a great move for Mr. Walsh, will have a huge impact for the positive on DocBook and his other efforts, and overall should stir up a space that's needed stirring up for some time.
For what it's worth, I've been keeping up with Dave Kellogg's block for a couple of years now, and if that level of insight carries down through the rest of the company, which I'm certain it does, I'm hard pressed to think of a more valuable place for Norm Walsh to find a home. One more step in the inevitable emergence of document-centric "contentbases" as a viable acceptable alternative to traditional RDBMSs for web applications? I hope so!
Obscure? Stole? Mystery? I thought I was fairly candid about why I left and why I joined Mark Logic.
I've been watching them with interest for several years, so they're hardly obscure in my book. I know some of the folks there personally and they're excellent. Everyone I met when I visited impressed me. The product is exceptional.
There's really no back story. No mystery.
FYI: The comment preview function suggests that HTML anchors in the prose are preserved, but they seem to get lost in the actual post.
>> do you expect to read the names of people he disliked and which conflict or issue was the last straw?
Oh, not at all... I didn't mean to come across like I thought there was a conspiracy, or that the only reason he would have left Sun was because of bad blood. I was just completely surprised by the move, and even more so by the fact that Norm has never been much of an XQuery fan. As such, to me anyway, this makes a pretty loud statement regarding Mark Logic as a company. To get Norm on board, they must really have something good.
@Kurt,
>> I think that this will be a great move for Mr. Walsh, will have a huge impact for the positive on DocBook and his other efforts, and overall should stir up a space that's needed stirring up for some time.
Oh, I absolutely agree! This is a pretty big deal. It will be interesting to see what type of goodness becomes of his presence.
@piers,
>> For what it's worth, I've been keeping up with Dave Kellogg's block for a couple of years now, and if that level of insight carries down through the rest of the company, which I'm certain it does, I'm hard pressed to think of a more valuable place for Norm Walsh to find a home.
Nice! I've added his feed to Planet XSLTransformations. I'm looking forward to learning more! :D
>> One more step in the inevitable emergence of document-centric "contentbases" as a viable acceptable alternative to traditional RDBMSs for web applications? I hope so!
Oh, I absolutely agree! This is really something interesting to pay attention to!
@Norm,
>> Obscure? Stole? Mystery? I thought I was fairly candid about why I left and why I joined Mark Logic.
So here's what happened: I read just the first portion of the entry in my feed reader and assumed that was it. I hadn't noticed "Sun set" at that point because "Mark Logic" was written afterwards so therefore was at the top of the stack in my inbox.
>> I've been watching them with interest for several years, so they're hardly obscure in my book.
That's probably the wrong word. I guess what I'm suggesting is the XQuery market at the moment is still pretty small, so by obscure company I really should have said something more inline with "small niche market industry."
>> I know some of the folks there personally and they're excellent. Everyone I met when I visited impressed me. The product is exceptional.
I need to learn more about it, obviously.
>> There's really no back story. No mystery.
Yeah, I certainly see that now... Should have dug a bit deeper. I'll update the post appropriately.
@Norm,
>> FYI: The comment preview function suggests that HTML anchors in the prose are preserved, but they seem to get lost in the actual post.
Yeah, I noticed that as well about a week or so back. I think maybe Kurt turned off support for anchor tags to discourage comment spam, though if you just place the URI inline it will render a link to that URI for you.
My company is a customer of Marklogic. Excellent product but more importantly a company staffed from top to bottom with excellent people. Welcome aboard Norm I'm sure you will fit right in.