Re: [xml-dev] Packaging (was Re: [xml-dev] Interoperability)

[James Clark <jjc@jclark.com>]

--On 16 November 2001 23:42 -0500 Gavin Thomas Nicol <gtn@rbii.com> wrote:

> On Friday 16 November 2001 07:44 pm, James Clark wrote:
>> Another format that should be considered is DIME:
>>
>>   http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/xml_wsspecs/dime/default.htm
>>
>> It seems pleasantly simple and well-designed. You can stream it for both
>> input and output.  It is being used by the Web Services Routing Protocol
>
> OTOH. I have developed a severe aversion to any MIME-base format for
> general  packaging of XML... lot's of issues that I don't even want to
> think about  anymore.

In what sense does DIME have a "MIME-base"?  The only connection between 
DIME and MIME that I can see is that DIME allows you to specify the type of 
a particular member with a MIME media-type; I can't see anything wrong with 
that, especially since it gives you a choice of whether you label the type 
of a member with a MIME media-type or with an absolute URI.

> Compared to XAR (or DZIP) I would say that DIME is more complex...

I'm surprised you think that.  ZIP provides a lot more functionality than 
DIME:

- file names
- file attributes
- compression
- checksums
- random access

All DIME does is allow to you pack a sequence of objects into a single byte 
stream, where each object consists of:

- a type (either a MIME media-type or an absolute URI)
- a unique identifier (a URI)
- a sequence of bytes

It does this in a way that is simple and efficient for both reading and 
writing.

James