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I'm not sure that I want to perpetuate this thread by adding to it, but do offer a
couple of observations.
Dare Obasanjo wrote<snipped>:
> The original poster mentioned CSVs which for all intents and purposes will
> always be smaller files than their XML counterparts. For complex data I assume
> ASN.1 could also represent the same data as XML but use less bytes to do it (I
> haven't used it just know developers who have) or even better any homegrown
> data format built specificially for that purpose would be more space efficient
> than XML.
Yes, and EDI has been used for over 20 years in a wide variety of industries for
this purpose, much more so than CSV files. It is *extremely* more space efficient
than XML.
> It doesn't, my point here was that in for some people (such as the IBM
> mainframe folks until XML 1.1) XML was unsuited to some of their data
> serialization needs due to its original intent as a text-based technology.
This idea that text-based technologies are unsuitable for data serialization is
somewhat of a red herring. EDI is strictly text based. In the beginning it was
all A-Z, 0-9, and a few common punctuation marks. Numerics and dates are
represented as text strings. You can bring up an EDI document in any text editor
and read it so long as you know the semantics associated with the data positions.
The main interest in XML as a data serialization technology has come about not
because of XML 1.1, but XML Schemas.
Regardless of its perceived suitability and the complexity of adding on XSD, SOAP,
etc., to make it useable, XML is fast becoming the "moving forward" technology for
data exchange between organizations.
--
Michael C. Rawlins, Rawlins EC Consulting
www.rawlinsecconsulting.com
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