Re: Textual transmission typically faster?

[Paul Cody Johnston <pcj@inxar.org>]

* David Megginson (david@megginson.com) wrote:
> Eugene Kuznetsov writes:
> 
> 
> Even if you could write a one-pass binary-format parser that could
> run, say, 20% faster than the best XML parsers in the same language,
> that advantage would make almost no difference to total application
> time, since, in my experience, actual XML parsing (as opposed to
> building object trees, DOM or otherwise) accounts for well under 5% of
> execution time for even the simplest real-world applications.  A 20%
> improvement in parsing time would give you at most a 1% improvement in
> application execution time.  If the document is coming over the net
> rather than from a local drive, even that small advantage will
> probably be lost in network latency.
> 

For most applications, yes.  But XML parsing is an issue for the
scalability of high-communication messaging applications.

In one example, it seems people are using XML as an abstraction
between the application and database more and more.  This puts a
strain on the throughput for these types of applications where
database activity is high.

Which is not to say that a binary format would solve this issue, but
it would help.

+---------------+---------------+------------------+
| Paul Johnston | pcj@inxar.org | http://inxar.org |
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