RE: "Binary XML" proposals

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

On Tue, 10 Apr 2001, Danny Ayers wrote:

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

I'm mainly after speed and storage, but making the parser simpler appeals
to me too, to a lesser degree.

And let's not forget image. To many programmers, XML *looks* inefficient
and awkward. That was my first thought when presented with the idea of
using it for data interchange; luckily I was enamoured enough of the good
work being done on various interesting schemas that suggested this data
format (although technically lacking in many respects) may actually
achieve "ubiquitous" status.

In *my* binary XML format project I'm not just going for speed, storage,
simpler parsing, and no more string quoting headaches; I'm also laying a
foundation that extends XML, allowing for attributes with arbitrary
markup, large binary objects inserted into XML, and something a little
more flexible than entities for "including" stuff. Those "extra" features
won't do anything when you're just processing normal XML through it, but
if it takes off in a big way (which will require a lot of marketing on my
part, I agree) and it becomes the ubiquitous format, then those neat
features can start to be used in those good schemas. That's a bit of an
idealistic dream, but You Never Know.

> Danny Ayers

ABS

-- 
                               Alaric B. Snell
 http://www.alaric-snell.com/  http://RFC.net/  http://www.warhead.org.uk/
   Any sufficiently advanced technology can be emulated in software