[gnome-db] Re: Abiword report generator [was Re: Dynamic data queries]

["Liam R. E. Quin" <liam holoweb net>]

On Wed, 2004-03-10 at 10:48, Linas Vepstas wrote:

> Yes, be where did the data to populate that user interface come from?
> That data may be from a complex SQL query, followed by a whole lotta
> post-processing.

For what it's worth, the future of database reports may be heading down
the XML Query route, with major commercial vendors supporting direct
access to relation stores via XML Query; one might use this to generate
a combination of XML or XHTML + CSS + SVG, or via XSl/FO into PDF.
In the Microsoft world I expect people will use the XML Query support
in SQL Server (in Yukon) to generate Avalon XML to make dialogue boxes,
documents, reports and forms, too.

There are open source XQuery implementations [1]; this is of course a
technology, not a user interface, but it's maybe indicative of a
general change in direction for the database industry as a whole.
The relational vendors want more of the document pie, as its a much
bigger market overall than the relational pie, but has in the past
been harder to approach.

Best,

Liam

-- 
Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
Ankh: irc.sorcery.net www.valinor.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org www.advogato.org