re: Query related comments (was RIM v0.54 distribution)

[David RR Webber <Gnosis_@compuserve.com>]

Message text written by Farrukh Najmi
>BTW I have had significant discussions with several query language experts
(people who have contributed to existing query language standards) and
their
general opinion is that designing a home brewed query interface syntax is a
very difficult task to get right. They unanimously favor a constrained
subset
of an existing standard. These experts include Rick Cattell (OQL), Umit
Yalcinap (EJB-QL), Neelam Vaidya (XML Query) and Eve Maler (XPointer).
<FullDisclosure>They are all Sun employees</FullDisclosure>.

Lastly, I want to propose a requirement that any query interface we come up
with must be able to do combinatorial queries using all attributes defined
by
RIM. Note that this is a much simpler requirement than designing a general
purpose ad hoc query mechanism where there is no pre-defined information
model
or schema.<

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Farrukh,

The proposal I documented today appears to meet both these criteria
completely.

Since it is only a XML container for business functional procedures and 
focused subset queries based on a constrained subset of XPath/XPointer,
and PLUS it is exactly tied to exploiting and providing combination queries
that exactly reflect the RIM access paths.

Most especially because it completely avoids at the procedure level
of dictating ANY query language whatsoever - just the business functional
API behaviour at a high level.

I can work tomorrow on producing a quick two or three page proposal
to formally qualify this beyond the details in the emails as indicated
by Scott previously prior to Friday.  The email does however appear to 
suscintly capture the salient details.

Thanks, DW.