XQuery from the Experts: A Guide to the W3C XML Query Language

Basic Principles

The XML Query Working Group did not draw up a formal list of the principles that guided the design of XQuery. Nevertheless, throughout the design process, a reasonably stable consensus existed in the working group about at least some of the principles that should underlie the design of an XML query language. Some of these principles were mandated by the charter of the working group, and others arose from strongly held convictions of its members. The following list is my own attempt to enumerate the basic ideas and principles that were most influential in shaping the XQuery language. Tension exists among some of these principles, and several design decisions were the result of an attempt to find a reasonable compromise among conflicting ...