XQuery in the Browser

Over the years, the browser has become a complete runtime environment for client-side programs. The main scripting language used towards this purpose is JavaScript, which was designed so as to program the browser. A lot of extensions and new layers have been built on top of it to allow e.g. DOM navigation and manipulation. However, JavaScript has become a victim of its own success and is used way beyond its possibilities, leading to increased code complexity. We suggest to reduce programming complexity by proposing XQuery as a client-side programming language. We wrote an extension for Microsoft Internet Explorer, based on the Zorba XQuery engine, which allows execution of XQuery scripts in the browser. An extension for Firefox is on the way as well. This paper demonstrates how client-side applications in XQuery look like and what they can do within a very small amount of code.