At 12/20/2004 08:29 PM (Monday), johnson_dave2003 wrote:

>XML is mainly useful in database transactions for transferring data
>between databases that are not necessarily similar, transforming data
>retrieved from a relational system or systems, or as an intermediate
>data from for conversion to a reporting or display system such as an
>HTML browser display.
>
>Support for XML is a trivial piece to write in Java. There is no
>reason for a database engine to encapsulate XML support when
>off-the-shelf free tools such as xalan, xerces, and jdbc can be tied
>together trivially to support XML against any dbms back-end.
>
>Oracle and MS-SQL's XML support is (in my not-so humble opinion),
>essentially a marketing ploy targeted at executives but has little
>real-world meaning.

At the risk of speaking for those who do not wish me to...

I think this reflects the majority opinion of the active Firebird
developers and architects.

I would extend it to say "Support for XML is a trivial piece to write in
any reasonable language." If you really want XML, just wrap a query class
with an XML wrapper class. Then donate it to the Firebird project so others
can benefit who also use your particular language and tool set.