May 09, 2005

Yet Another Attempt to Cram XQuery Down Your Throat

PRESS RELEASE XQuery Use Growing: DevX Poll

I've said it before and, what the hell, I'll say it again... I like XQuery. In fact I use XQuery. I don't plan to use XQuery as my primary or prefered XML-related development language and it seems Data Direct has decided they're not going to be happy unless the software development world becomes completely saturated by XQuery developers who do.

You think if we all just got together and wrote Data Direct a little note saying "If we tell you we will write some code in XQuery and then follow-up with a statement such as "I have written code in XQuery and its a really useful language" it might get them to shutup??? Doubtful... it would probably have to say something more like "I am and forever will be an XQuery developer. In fact I half wonder if God himself is an XQuery developer as there is no doubt in my mind that this language has its root in the Allmighty himself... I mean look at it... Its Perfect!!! What else could we possibly need other than XQuery. Wow! Wow, Wow, Wow... all I can say is Wow! Sweet Nectar of the Gods... I BELIEVE!!!!"

Data Direct,,, Let it go... We like XQuery and plan to use it. Can't that be enough?

Probably not.

Just because I can't imagine anything else I would rather do I have added some commentary to yesterdays press release. Enjoy!

BEDFORD, MA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 05/09/2005 -- Stylus Studio (http://www.stylusstudio.com), the leading provider of XML tools for advanced data integration, today announced the results of a DevX online poll which shows that a majority of software developers currently use or plan to use XQuery technologies. [comment: Oh how I love that phrase "majority of software developers." Lets see what kind of math got us to that magical 51 or more % to qualify this statement as "accurate"] According to the non-scientific poll [comment: so how much did it cost them to pay the lawyer to add that phrase into this... $5k, $10k... Damn, I'm in the wrong business. Can you imagine if I had the ability to bill out 5-10k for every two-and-half words I wrote... I could pay cash to buy out Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle and still have money left over to pick up a sandwich at Subway. Now I realize the quality of the words "non-scientific poll" goes far beyond anything I could ever dream of conjuring up inside this XSLT infected cranium of mine so I best get over the dream and on with my poor unfortunate XSLT-infested life... How depressing... I need some chocolate... [Hey, I grew up with five sisters... what can you expect?]] of [comment: oh, here we go... the numbers!!! This is so exciting... ]302 software developers, 43% said that "We implemented XQuery and it's incredibly useful"; [comment: Thats what they said? Thats it. This is what qualifies 43 of the necessary 51% to state "...a majority of software developers currently use or plan to use XQuery technologies"? Wait! I just noticed something... "XQuery technologies." That lawyer they've got, He/She's a crafty one I tell ya. I wonder if there was a seperate line item for that phrase or if it was just thrown in for free... wait, I'm sorry... we're talking about lawyers... there's probably an "Excessive Usage of Legal Terminology" line item added on top of the "additional two-words" line item. BTW... what qualifies to be an "XQuery technology" anyway? See how clever those lawyers are???!!! I don't think they're being paid enough!] another 16% said that "We'll be using [XQuery] soon, too." [comment: Wow, thats a really powerful statement. If I were an IT decision maker I know where I would be spending my training dollars... Why not just throw in a question like "Have you heard of XQuery?" That should easily be enough too justify the statement "90% of developers have implemented XQuery" based on the idea that by simply checking the box this could technically be seen as a form of implementation. If you rigged the form such that by clicking the box it sent an XMLHTTP request stream over the wire that invoked an XQuery statement you could further enhance such a statement. Hey, implementation is implementation, right? Ahhh, hell... Did I just put ideas into Data Direct's head that I'm going to regret by this time tomorrow? Note: Why only 90%? Anytime you use the letter "X" in a questionaire focused towards developers you have to factor in the fact that 10% of all respondents immediatelly associate "X" with porn and therefore assume you are refering to a porn title... Hey, theres an idea. Buy some B-rate porn title from some fledgling porn producer, re-title it "XQuery", make it freely downloadable, and watch that "Developers who haved used XQuery" meter slam the 99% line quicker than you can say "Free Porn!!!" Speaking to the "99%" phenomenom... Why is it that there is always that 1% of men who simply can't admit they've "fill this in with whichever sexual related poll question you want..."? Liars! all 1% of ya ;)] DevX is the premier online technical information source for application development professionals. [comment: Is it? Huh, who knew. If this statement is true [and I'm not suggesting its not, I just have no idea if it is or if it isn't] that should mean several million developers will spend time reading your e'zine... Several million readers and only 302 of them responded. Where'd ya put the link to the questionaire, on the "About" page? It would seem that "of our millions of readers only 302 of them actually cared enough to answer our questionaire" speaks a lot louder than any results obtained from these 302 readers.]

"A recent DevX online poll suggests a substantial and growing interest in XQuery technologies among the DevX readership [comment: Somehow "302 readers", "the premier online technical information source for application development professionals", and "substantial and growing interest in XQuery technologies among the DevX readership" don't really line up all that well together. If you consider 302 readers enough of a sampling to qualify "among the DevX readership" as factual then I think you may want to consider a new business model as 302 readers, I'm guessing, is probably not enough to build a profitable online e'zine with. But again, I'm just guessing] of software and IT professionals, even though the XQuery specification itself is still in development," [comment: Oh come on!!! The damn things been under development for almost as long as XSLT and XPath have been a specification. For it to have lasted this long without simply being forgotten about, of course there's interest in XQuery... why do you think people don't already know this???] said Dr. A. Russell Jones, Executive Editor at DevX.com, a Jupitermedia company. "It's also significant because our readers aren't exclusively XML developers [comment: How is that significant? Wait, are you under the impression that its XML developers that the XQuery supporters are targeting??? Do you even understand your own business??? I can assure you that existing XML developers such as myself are not the ones XQuery advocates are going after... they're only a couple hundred thousand of us, if that! The moneys in the other umpteem million developers out there who deal with XML only when and because they absolutely have to. So to make a suggestion that even though your readers are not exclusively XML developers that this fact, in and of itself, helps further substantiate these numbers... Dude, you've got to justify that "Dr." in front of your name with something a little more Dr'ish than this...], but rather come from such diverse technological backgrounds." [comment: Such diverse technical backgrounds as...? Isn't this statement missing some meat??? Where's your degree from??? Hmmmm.... Now I know someone is going to come along and say "well technically this is correct grammar and" hold it... stop right there. You're talking about hackers here. There is a reason why we write code instead of magazine articles. Hell, I'm suprised that half of us don't end our sentences with semi-colons! All I'm asking is to fill in the rest of that sentence with the technological background your readers tend to come from. Am I asking too much here?]

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Ok, well that was fun... Hope your day starts off with as much fun as mine has!!! :)