Answer to H. Steele Price's post on FOR XML whitepaper
Thanks to Kent for pointing me to H. Steele Price's posting on my FOR XML white paper. Instead of posting a local comment, I will reply here.
First and foremost: Thanks for the cudos. I especially like the following quote:
As my applications move more toward SOA style architectures returning XML data directly from SQL Server takes alot of the drudge work out of creating retrieve code.
Regarding an EXPLICIT mode designer: We already have some form of EXPLICIT mode designer (although it could be more user-friendly): Use XPath against annotated schemas and then read the generated query from the Profiler trace :-).
Seriously, the goal is to make the EXPLICIT mode obsolete for the 98% use case. The PATH mode should allow you to generate any hierarchy that you can imagine that is still well-formed XML. Only the !cdata and !xmltext directives should still make you use the EXPLICIT mode (and then nest it inside a PATH mode) and potentially some specific performance requirements (although we hope to make this a small percentage as well).
So instead of (or in addition to) bugging us for an EXPLICIT design tool, please let us know, what you think is missing in the PATH mode. Especially, if you find that you need namespace support, please let me know. We have the design and need the feedback to get it into this next release.