Observations from the 2009 XML Workshop in Toronto

I had the opportunity to attend the DataDirect-sponsored XML Workshop in Toronto.  It was presented by Ivan Pedruzzi, Program Manager for the DataDirect XML Products.  The workshop was interactive discussing and demonstrating how the Data Integration Suite solves the problems of accessing data from various data stores.  Many questions asked by the attendees were about implementing XQuery into their specific environments.  When asked if performance was important, most of the attendees raised their hands.  Ivan explained how we use the technique of streaming and projection to query very large XML documents without reading the entire document into memory.  Also, the underlying SQL we generate for relational data access is not generic, but specific to the database.  This provides a more scalable solution for querying relational data.  Lastly, Ivan provided a sneak preview of Stylus Studio 2010’s new feature for building update expressions visually within the XQuery mapper. 

All in all, the XML Workshop was a huge success.  Every person seemed engaged and got something out of it.   In fact, I had heard one attendee took notes of the presentation and presented it to her coworkers.  That’s a sign of a great workshop!

More XML Workshops are being planned for this fall.  Click here for details.