> Liam wrote this really interesting paragraph:
>
>> The benefit to using maps or arrays over
>> elements in XSLT or XQuery is that element
>> nodes are too heavyweight, and too prone
>> to turning their content back into strings.
>> In XQuery in particular, constructors by
>> default do a terrible and dismal thing:
>> <x>3</x> makes a text node inside an x
>> element. And XDM element nodes have
>> a ton of properties, such as next, previous,
>> parent, schema type, is_happy, none  of
>> which are needed for a matrix of numbers.
>
> Yikes! Isn't that an argument against using XML and XSLT?
>
It's an argument against using XML trees for working data structures when
implementing complex algorithms - which is why XSLT 3.0 provides an
alternative.

Michael Kay
Saxonica