Balisage Paper: NoXML: Extending the relevance of XPath by breaking the chains of the DOM
David Lee
Lead Engineer
MarkLogic, Inc.
David Lee has over 30 years' experience in the software industry responsible for many major projects in small and large companies including Sun Microsystems, IBM, Centura Software (formerly Gupta.), Premenos, Epiphany (formerly RightPoint), WebGain, Nexstra, Epocrates, MarkLogic. As Lead Engineer at MarkLogic, Inc., Mr. Lee is responsible for maintaining and enhancing the core Enterprise NoSQL Database server.
Copyright © David A. Lee, 2014
Abstract
XPath is an ingenious invention and the core strength, if not the foundation, of the success of XML. Through its life it has been enhanced, redefined, specified, extended and embedded into nearly every XML technology. XPath and XDM (the data model of XPath 2.0 and XQuery 1.0) intricately bind XML (the serialization format) and XML technologies (the languages) into a powerful and successful set of Data Specific Languages (DSLs) that power the XML Ecosystem. It is this very success, however, that is both pushing the original boundaries of XML Processing and holding them back from the prominence they once claimed. The elegance and power of XPath is at risk as we push the use cases of what-was XML Only languages but are held back by an XML Only data model for XPath.