Re: Comments against TMQL draft 2006-02-22

* Robert Barta
>
> ['name' referring to tm:name]
>
> No, we discussed it in Leipzig that it should, though.

Yes.

> Having it in the mapping is certainly good enough for the short
> term.

Good!

> Maybe in TMDM 2.0 (when we all are much wiser) we can it put in
> directly.

You mean when we are all much older, right?

> [Why isn't navigation along axes a QL thing?]
>
> Because it is a model thing? The navigation section is the _only_
> thing in TMQL which touches TMDM. The rest is vanilla query
> mechanics. This is an indicator for me, that that part might go
> elsewhere later.

Well. Since we all agree that this won't happen now I think we can  
save time by not discussing this now. (Ie: I don't agree, but it  
doesn't matter now, so I'll concentrate on issues that do matter now.)

> The only thing which would have to remain in TMQL is the syntax. But
> as people use to say "it's just fu**ing syntax" :-)

The semantics need to be there, too.

> "Short-circuit" && in C, for example, means that if the first operand
> evaluates to false, the other is not evaluated at all.

Yes.

> In C (a state oriented language) this makes a difference, in  
> functional language which do not have any side-effects, there is no  
> difference between & and &&.

Yes and no. There are cases where it's useful to be able to write  
various kinds of queries where only one of a set of alternative paths  
(through the query) are taken.

> In TMQL, the operator || is *sort-of* 'short-circuit' in the sense
> that only if the first operand is not empty, then the second operand
> will be taken.

I understand. That sounds like a way to meet the requirement I hint  
at above. I'm curious why this operator was introduced, though. What  
was the rationale?

--Lars M.