May 23, 2005

Keep 'em coming DataDirect...

While I won't promise I will post every little piece you send out to the world for consumption I can suggest that if this is how you plan to promote XQuery and your support for XQuery via tools and processors you may just find yourself a friend again in XSLTBlog...

For anybody who plans to promote their software technolgies via a newsletter or online e'zine let this example act as a VERY GOOD implementation of how to promote your product the correct way without have to explain yourself or lose face in the community becuase of what seems to be shady business practice.

Keep 'em coming DD!

Dear Stylus Studio Friend,

XQuery! So familiar, yet so coy! While we wait for the formal W3C XQuery
Recommendation, developers like you keep banging down our door for new
XQuery tools and components. And so we're especially excited to dedicate
this special edition of the 'Scoop to announcing DataDirect XQuery (DDXQ)!
With DDXQ, you can execute XQuery directly against any relational database
including Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, and IBM DB2 - and process the
results from within your Java applications! And the icing on the cake? You
can build these applications with Stylus Studio today! (Yes, today!) Read
on and learn more about how you can put XQuery to work accessing relational
data. And watch your inbox for next month's regularly scheduled edition of
the Scoop.

Sincerely,

Ivan Pedruzzi, Senior Product Architect and the Stylus Studio Team!

The Stylus Scoop, May 2005

Table of Contents:

1) Simplify Relational-XML Data Integration with XQuery
2) XQJ: The XQuery API for Java
3) XQuery 101: Everything you ever needed to know about XQuery.
4) Why I XQuery: How developers are using XQuery in Healthcare.
5) True Stylus Studio Stories: Why I switched to Stylus Studio

1) Simplify Relational-XML Data Integration with XQuery

XQuery is more than just a neat way to query XML - now you can use it to
query relational databases, join XML and relational data, and simplify XML-
Relational data integration. A beta release of DataDirect XQuery (DDXQ), a
Java XQuery component that implements both XQuery and the XQuery API for
Java (XQJ), is now available for free download. That's right: XQuery has
arrived on the Java platform! Register and learn more about the DDXQ beta
program today at: http://www.datadirect.com/products/xquery/xquerybetahome/

Here are some questions we anticipate you might have about DDXQ (in a word,
though: yes, it really is all that). If you have one we don't answer, visit
http://www.datadirect.com/products/xquery/xquery_faq/ for the full DDXQ
Monty.

Q: What relational databases can I invoke my XQueries against using
DataDirect XQuery?
A: Using DataDirect XQuery, you can execute XQuery expressions against
Oracle 9i (R1 and R2) and 10g, Microsoft SQL Server 2000, and IBM DB2
Universal Database (UDB) 8.1 on Windows NT/2000/2003/XP, UNIX, and Linux
(with more databases coming soon). You can use DDXQ to query XML, too,
including XML files located on file systems accessed using "http:", "ftp:",
and "file:" URI schemes, and XML contained in a Java application, such as
DOM or SAX.

Q: Why would I use XQuery to query relational data?
A: So you can get all the benefits of using XML (standards-based
interoperability and transformability, for starters) and still benefit from
the high performance that relational databases have to offer. Unless you
are looking forward to migrating volumes of relational data to XML, that
is.

Q: What types of applications use XML and relational data?
A: Many middleware applications -- complex report generation, Web services
applications, Web publishing, and others -- need to process relational data
and XML. These applications, common to enterprises large and small, can all
be simplified using XQuery. For example, XQuery can be used to access the
content of messages or to construct new messages to be passed to a Web
service. In addition, you often need data to process Web Services results.
XQuery can process SOAP messages and create the XML needed for result
messages. These are just a few examples of where XQuery can simplify XML
and relational data integration.

Q: Where can I learn more about these new XQuery technologies?
A: Get started on the path to solving the relational-XML integration puzzle
using the DataDirect XQuery! Register for the beta today at:
http://www.datadirect.com/products/xquery/xquerybetahome/

2) XQJ: The XQuery API for Java

Think of XQJ as the JDBC for XQuery - it provides a standards-based
interface for accessing databases or XML repositories using XQuery. XQJ
lets you write portable XQuery data access code using far fewer lines of
code, and it is the best solution for Java XML-relational data integration.
In a nutshell, the XQuery API for Java (XQJ) enables a Java application to
submit XQuery statements to a data source and programmatically iterate
through the results.

A new tutorial (and XQJ example) demonstrates how to use XQJ to invoke an
XQuery expression and how to obtain results from within a Java application.
It shows how XQJ can be used to perform joins between XML and relational
sources, query DOM trees, issue prepared XQueries (similar to JDBC's
prepared statements), and more. The example includes complete, working XQJ
programs with source code and explanations. This material is available in
HTML and in a printable PDF format. Check it out at:
http://www.datadirect.com/developer/xquery/topics/xqj_tutorial/

3) XQuery 101: Everything you ever needed to know about XQuery

We're pleased to be able to provide you with an XQuery tutorial that
includes a technical introduction to XQuery. And this is no puffy marketing
piece (like the one you're knee-deep in now!) - this tutorial was written
by Mr. Jonathan Robie, one of the designers of XQuery, and the Program
Manager for DataDirect XQuery. The tutorial covers advanced XQuery topics
like the XQuery Data Model, literals, locating and finding nodes, built-in
and user-defined functions, XQuery types, and more. It's everything you
ever needed to know about XQuery (but were afraid to ask). The XQuery
tutorial is also available free, in either HTML or a printable PDF format.
XQuery has arrived on the Java platform! Isn't it time you learned XQuery?
Visit us here, and let the learning begin:
http://www.datadirect.com/developer/xquery/xquery_tutorial/

4) Why I XQuery: How one developer is using XQuery in healthcare

Bing Wu is a Lead Software Engineer working in the healthcare sector. In
this role, Bing is responsible for developing server-side Java Web service
applications. You can read about how Bing uses XQuery to simplify his work
here: http://www.stylusstudio.com/xquery/cust_healthcare.html

(If you'd like to showcase your own XQuery application in The Stylus Scoop,
drop us a line at stylusstudio@stylusstudio.com.)

5) True Stylus Studio Stories: Why I switched to Stylus Studio

Here's what Dr. Michael Kay, editor of the XSLT specification, founder of
Saxonica, and a world-leading XML guru with just way too many
qualifications to list in this newsletter, recently said on XML-DEV, a
popular forum for XML developers: "I find that the easiest way to do ad-hoc
validation (i.e., not integrated into an application) is to use a tool such
as Stylus Studio. One of the nice things is that Stylus allows you to
validate using a range of different processors - if your document is
invalid, it can be helpful to get the error messages from more than one
processor. By contrast, XML Spy uses its own schema processor, which is not
always 100% conformant with the spec." Read the entire thread here:
http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/200505/msg00257.html

Want to learn more about why people are switching to Stylus Studio? Visit
http://www.stylusstudio.com/switch/! Or take a moment to write and tell us
why you chose Stylus Studio -- or anything else that's on your mind --
we'll respond! Drop us a line at stylusstudio@stylusstudio.com