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Robin Berjon wrote:
>
> Well, even just considering XML there are several of these that I
> disagree with. Or rather, a lot discusses "how ERH would do it" vs "how
> other people that may have different needs could do it", with
> judgemental implications (interestingly enough, just as it is whenever
> you FUD about binary) that only the former is correct (eg 11, or in a
> different way, 50. "XML documents are almost always smaller than the
> equivalent binary file format" is just a dirty lie, and claiming it's
> true using Word documents as a comparison base for proof of that is just
> amusing, if somewhat dishonest). Because of this, even when I have
> equally strong and identical opinions about some of those parts, I'm
> uncomfortable agreeing with them. Maybe being a doc-head Perl hacker in
> a binary world makes you listen to other people. Or something.
>
That's a ridiculous oversimplification of what's actually written there.
Anyone whose curious can read the full explanation with all caveats and
details in place:
http://www.cafeconleche.org/books/effectivexml/chapters/50.html
However, I do still hold to the basic statement that XML documents are
almost always smaller than the equivalent binary file format. While I
have seen people do really stupid things that no one would ever do in
the real world like encoding every bit of an image as an element in
order to prove how inefficient XML is, the fact is in 2005 real world
documents are routinely as small or smaller in XML than the equivalent
non-XML formats. Software vendors stopped worrying about size roughly
ten years ago, and nobody noticed or cared.
I think you're the one who's having trouble accepting that different
people need different solutions. You want to force everyone to use XML,
not me. I have no problem with there being data in the world that cannot
be conveniently and efficiently represented in XML. If developers in
particular spaces like mobile applications need to use something other
than XML, that's fine. I don't think there is any one solution that will
fit all needs, and attempting to create one will just produce a mess
that satisfies no one. Calling your one-true uber format "XML" will
simply confuse the marketplace and drag XML down with it.
--
Elliotte Rusty Harold elharo@metalab.unc.edu
XML in a Nutshell 3rd Edition Just Published!
http://www.cafeconleche.org/books/xian3/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0596007647/cafeaulaitA/ref=nosim
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