RE: [xml-dev] Hostility to "binary XML" (was Re: [xml-dev] XML 2004 weblog items?)

["Dare Obasanjo" <dareo@microsoft.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: 'Liam Quin' [mailto:liam@w3.org] 
> Sent: Monday, November 22, 2004 2:03 PM
> To: Bullard, Claude L (Len)
> Cc: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
> Subject: Re: [xml-dev] Hostility to "binary XML" (was Re: 
> [xml-dev] XML 20 04 weblog items?)
> 
> 
> So yes, I think we (W3C, publishers of XML) should consider 
> working with the wider XML community, and also with some of 
> the communities represented for example on the Binary WG, who 
> are currently on the fringes of the XML world and would like 
> to move closer under the warm blanket of XML love, and 
> consider further simplifications.  Whether that means 
> abandoning SGML itself I don't know either way right now.

The primary benefit of XML 1.0 is its ubiquity which has led to a large
ecosystem of tools and technologies for working with it. In general, XML
is a suboptimal solution for most of the tasks developers use it for,
however this is offset by the gains of working within the XML ecosystem.
From the impression I got from the Binary XML town hall last week a
number of folks (e.g. the US military, mobile service providers) would
like to get this ecosystem of tools without the suboptimal text format.
Basically they want to have their cake and eat it too. 

The core assumption seems to be that this can be done by upgrading some
low level technologies (i.e. parsers) without having to affect the
entire ecosystem. This reminds me a lot of the assumptions behind XML
1.1, I was skeptical of that endeavor and I'm even more skeptical of
this endeavor.  We have a near ubiqitious data storage and data
transmission format for intranets and the internet yet the many want to
poison the interoperability well by increasing the number of
incompatible formats that are called 'XML'. 

--
PITHY WORDS OF WISDOM 
It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are ingenious.


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