RE: "Binary XML" proposals

[Danny Ayers <danny@panlanka.net>]

Ok then, take away speed & storage benefits, what gain is there from binary
XML?

(I was arguing that the speed & storage benefits were *not* good enough
reasons to move from trad. XML, but I've seen some points made since that
make me less sure)

---
Danny Ayers
http://www.isacat.net

<- -----Original Message-----
<- From: Tim Bray [mailto:tbray@textuality.com]
<- Sent: 10 April 2001 04:33
<- To: The Deviants
<- Subject: "Binary XML" proposals
<-
<-
<- At 12:22 PM 08/04/01 +0600, Danny Ayers wrote:
<- > Ok, so if you put all this together,
<- >what would you be gaining? Say an order or two of magnitude of
<- speed?  (and
<- >the same kind of gains for data storage)
<-
<- The world may have a place for binary XML, but the above is not an
<- argument for it.  First of all, an argument that unpacking a
<- binary format (particularly on a machine whose binaries are
<- different and you have to bit-swizzle) is significantly faster than
<- XML parsing a la expat or MSXML, needs to supported by actual
<- empirical data rather than by assertion.  And suppose, as a thought
<- experiment, that this were true; if you were to speed up the
<- XML parsing/generating part of an XML-using application, how much
<- 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.
<-
<- 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?
<-
<- Absent some good strong empirical evidence, neither processing
<- nor storage cost are a priori arguments for going binary.
<-
<-  -Tim
<-
<-
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