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It's confusing to have an expression called a "transform expression" (with non-terminal symbol TransformExpr) that does not use the keyword "transform" in its syntax. Members of the WG will be able to relate to this because they know the history, but it's illogical when seen without this knowledge. For implementors, it makes it difficult to decide whether to use the term "transform expression" in error messages - will users know what this term is referring to? It's better for names of expressions to bear some relationship to the keywords that characterize them. I suggest renaming it to a "copy-modify" expression, with the non-terminal CopyModifyExpr.
Michael, The Query Working Group considered this bug report on 15 April 2008. The working group agrees that a "transform expression" no longer contains the keyword "transform". However, the group feels that "transform expression" is a reasonably descriptive name, just as "conditional expression" is a descriptive name for an expression that does not contain the keyword "conditional". The benefit to be gained by changing the descriptive name of this expression does not seem to justify the work involved in changing nonterminal symbols in the grammar, error messages, XQueryX syntax, etc. Therefore the consensus of the working group was to close this bug report with no changes to the specification. If you are satisfied with this resolution, please mark this bug report as "Closed". Regards, Don Chamberlin (for the Query Working Group)
Accepted with reluctance.