Maybe I'm too cynical and jaded, but two events somewhat suprised me today.
The first one was a series of e-mails on the OLUG mailing list talking about the announcement that Microsoft would be denying access to Windows Update to folks using likely pirated versions of Windows XP. Most of those folks who had something to say about seemed to indicate a positive feeling about it, or at least that it made sense. Of course, there were plenty of reminders to the effective of "open source software can't be pirated in the first place." Can't disagree with that, but still, I thought is good to see folks "getting it" about what boils down to business -- not a technology -- decision on Microsoft's part.
Now had Microsoft gone to the extreme turned off / stopped feeding automatic updates to tainted systems, even I would have blown a gasket. While using pirated software might seem to only hurt the vendor who sells it most of the time, the environment has changed. There's too much distributed, crap-spewing, zombie-making malware in the wild that we all get hurt when any OS is left vulnerable to it. You can be an anti-corporate anarchist all you like in your house, but when your toliet overflows into my house you've gone too far. automatic updates -- get it done. Nuff Said.
The second is what didn't happen in terms of reaction to the formally announcement that there won't be an XQuery stack in the .NET 2.0 framework. I expected as least some, but maybe the folks that really care about XQuery are a.) deciding to do it with an Java-based solution (more power to 'em I say), b.) have come to the same conclusion that I did a long time ago that the right place to store XML is within thre friendly confines of a database management system, c.) are too enthrawled with Saxon.NET to notice or 4.) Still really think that nailing XSLT does the job (and that Jelly nails easily to trees...)
Michael Champion did take the initative though and post this lengthy discussion of the topic. Frankly, I found it be more depressing than the cut annoucement itself. It left me feeling like he sees very little to no future for XQuery. Well, the future is what you make of it either way I suppose. I've posted some thoughts on this topic back to the referenced page.
Eric Lippert has started a series of posts called "You want Salt with that?" where he plans to talk about securing things using essentially private inventions vs. publicly understood methods. I really suggest following this along for a couple of reasons: First, Eric is a good writer who knows his stuff. I think we can count on him to keep this somewhat complex topic understandable. Second, its important to understand these concepts when gearing up for the new data securing facilites of SQL Server 2005.
Seemingly ages ago Dare talked about cutting XQuery from the .NET stack for various reasons. Well, now it is official. Fine. Doesn't look like the sky fell overnight.
Michael Rys and
Michael Champion have both blogged about the official annoucement too.
But what's the most telling this in this blip with something that Mr. Champion dug into his post:
Microsoft has learned the hard way (by supporting a draft of XSLT in IE5) that supporting draft specifications in core technology causes far more pain for everyone over the long run than it gives back in benefit.
Let's not forget about the
interesting times we had when Microsoft decided that we needed schmea (XDR) before XSD was a standard... I think you get the point: baking XQuery into the client side today just doesn't make sense on the client-side.
But if you think it does, there's at least one community-based alternative to learn and enjoy.
As to why is okay to have XQuery in SQL Server, Read what Michael Rys had to say. (note: added after Adam's good question below.