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Elliotte Harold wrote:
> That's a ridiculous oversimplification of what's actually written there.
Of course it. I happened to be under the impression that ridiculous
oversimplification was what you were looking for, if that's not the case
I'm sorry to say that it's not obvious from what you've posted to this
thread so far.
> However, I do still hold to the basic statement that XML documents are
> almost always smaller than the equivalent binary file format.
I wonder how that statement is supposed to hold in the face of the fact
that dozens of "binary XML" formats out there are systematically smaller
than the equivalent XML. There are indeed interesting cases, for
instance when you see that a gzipped SVG document is often circa 30%
smaller than the SWF with the same functionality, but they hardly make
the rule.
> 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 would be fine with that if that's what those people wanted, but it's
not. Besides, believing that the wireless and PC industries are in
separate walled gardens is quite frankly naïve and optimistic. Any Web
format simply needs to work the same way on both. Those two worlds are
really one, and in fact the more they are united the more interesting
they both are. A single way of interchanging documents and data is what
those people want.
I'm not forcing anyone to do anything — if I had the means to do that
quite a few problems would be solved already (at least to my
satisfaction :). In fact, to be perfectly honest if no one were
interested in binary XML I'd be much happier concerning myself with
higher-level work such as SVG, sXBL, CDF, etc. — the infrastructural
work is less shiny and quite unglamourous (not to mention likely to get
one insulted on xml-dev, though that's not so bad). It just so happens
that between what my opinions were three years ago ("Fine but don't use
XML, you don't know what you're talking about") and today I've been in
contact with a lot of people both through Expway and XBC that are not
dumb, that know what they're talking about, and that know why they want
what they want and why the "XML" bit needs to be there.
So you can picture yourself in a walled garden and be as dismissive as
you want, it'll simply bear no relationship to reality.
> 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.
See? FUD again. Where are the arguments? Who's trying to fit all needs?
Who's working on a one-true über format?
I would've thought they were enough villains out there that you wouldn't
need come up with imaginary ones.
--
Robin Berjon
Research Scientist
Expway, http://expway.com/
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