Re: [xml-dev] Compiled XML

[Mike Champion <mc@xegesis.org>]

3/26/2002 2:46:41 PM, "Nick Johnson" <arachnid@mad.scientist.com> wrote:

>Hello All,
>
>I'm new to the xml-dev list, so please forgive (and point out) any stupid
>mistakes :P

Not by any means a stupid question, but a frequently asked (and not definitively
answered) question.  There are two issues - compression of XML to remove the
"bloat" and saving a parsed data structure in binary form to reduce the overhead 
of re-parsing.

The first issue is definitely one best handled by compression, but whether 
a generic compression such as gzip or a compression scheme that exploits the
specific regularity of XML is still debated.  Well, at least for wireless 
devices one can make a credible case that an XML-specific compression scheme is
more efficient of the various limited resources on a wireless device.  In general,
though, you would be well-advised to not try to compress arbitrary text better 
than gzip can.  You'll fail.

The binary XML issue comes up every few months and generates a lot of dispute.
 The "mainstream" position seems to be that XML is really not all
that hard to parse, the parsers are well-optimized, the overhead of doing the
byte swapping and other binary format conversion to transfer parsed data from 
one platform to another outweighs any theoretical advantage of having a 
"compiled" form, and that the whole issue is a red herring.  I expect that
the holders of the minority view (Hi, Al!) will let you know their response.