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

["Rick Jelliffe" <ricko@allette.com.au>]

From: "David Megginson" <david@megginson.com>
 
> James Clark writes:
> 
>  > OpenOffice is also using ZIP as a packaging format for XML. See
>  > 
>  >   http://xml.openoffice.org/faq.html#4
>  > 
>  > I think a ZIP-based packaging format makes a lot of sense, but getting all 
>  > the details right is non-trivial.  An OASIS TC would be a natural place to 
>  > standardize this given the overlap with entity resolution catalogs.
> 
> It makes sense because it's widely deployed and proven to work (as
> most of you know, Java's JAR format is zip-based).  The problem is
> that ZIP is non-streaming -- you have to download the entire zip file
> before you can start processing it, since the directory information is
> at the end.  Until we know what people are actually going to do with
> this stuff, it's hard to figure out the cost/benefit balance.

The easy answer is to take streamability off any list of hard requirements!

I think having a format that any developer could construct using common delployed tools (e.g., WinZIP) and read without requiring any new specific API (e.g., just using the standard Java ZIP APIs) is a good bottom line.  If it is much more complex than that then it starts to move into the InstallShield complexity very fast, which is no good.  

That is why just using file extensions and conventions by which vendors or integrators can reserve dirctories (e.g. use their domain name) would be a better basis than requiring manifest files, catalogs, RDDL directories etc. 

Cheers 
Rick Jelliffe