Re: "Binary XML" proposals

[Al Snell <alaric@alaric-snell.com>]

On Mon, 9 Apr 2001, Tim Bray wrote:

> would that speed up the whole application?  You'd need to know 
> what proportion of its time it spends parsing/generating XML.  In
> some apps, this proportion is going to be very small.

Yep, but if in even 1% of apps it would make a welcome or necessary
difference, then it's worth it. That's a lot of apps.

> As for the data storage volume issue, uh, isn't the world awash
> in admirable compression technology that works pretty well on
> most data formats, and particularly well on redundant textual
> stuff like XML?

It'll work even better on a tighter binary format. Less compression ratio,
but the amount of information in a binary-XML file is less than the amount
of information in a text-XML file. And there isn't always the software and
processor time / memory buffers available for data compression engines.

> Absent some good strong empirical evidence, neither processing
> nor storage cost are a priori arguments for going binary.

Simplicity? Parsing XML is a complex task, meaning writing parsers is
harder than it would be for a binary format.

> 
>  -Tim
> 

ABS

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