Not quite getting the "terseness" angle. As pointed out in Rick's
article, SGML has the capability to parse CSV/TSV, markdown or your
own custom Wiki syntax, HTML, JSON,
lines-starting-with-special-characters (like troff, but also IBM's GML
and SCRIPT/VS = initial application of SGML), and other reasonable
forms of data representation in text. So there is a canonical data
preparation mechanism after all, it just didn't make it into XML along
with all the other SGML-only features, also as pointed out in Rick's
article. Which makes sense, XML representing only the canonical
output/result of such preparation.
I guess the fixation on JSON by the XML community is because JSON ate
XML's lunch in lucrative enterprise integration, so to speak. The
point, though, never has been generic data representation as such, but
publishing information as digital text via markup.
Best,
M. Reichardt
sgmljs.net
On 7/18/21, Ihe Onwuka <ihe.onwuka@gmail.com> wrote:
> Just want to comment on the terseness angle.
>
> In other domains the need for a data preparation step to tame obnoxiously
> formatted data before it is used is generally accepted and not
> controversial. When it concerns XML however no such step is contemplated
> and instead we get specious interminable whining about bloat and
> verbosity.
> Here is an past example of 324k JSON data naively converted to 1.16MB of
> XML which reduced to 350K of XML after some 'data prep'.
>
> http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/201409/msg00026.html
>
> I believe it's generally the case that with such a step the size of
> "equivalent" JSON and XML is within about 10% of each other.
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 18, 2021 at 4:37 AM Rick Jelliffe <rjelliffe@allette.com.au>
> wrote:
>
>> While in lock-down, I took the time to write down a little post for
>> Schematron.com called "The Goals of XML at 25: and the one change that
>> XML really now needs
>> <https://schematron.com/2021/07/the-goals-of-xml-at-25-and-the-one-change-that-xml-really-has-needed/>"
>> which people interested in the past and future of XML may find familiar
>> but
>> not irrelevant.
>>
>> Key passage, or twist:
>>
>> "*For several decades I have dabbled with methods to speed up parsing
>> UTF-8 and XML using SIMD and parallel parsing: my conclusion is that the
>> approach I am suggesting here is the only feasible way for XML to not be
>> sidelined as slow and complex. I think the lack of papers and experience
>> demonstrating otherwise indicates it too.)"*
>>
>> Regards
>> Rick
>>
>> (Here in Sydney we are in lockdown again, after an exiled year of almost
>> no cases, Delta broke through, and we are trying to eliminate it. Taiwan
>> successfully eliminated it this month, so maybe we will: elimination is a
>> feasible strategy on islands, rather than just suppression. I get my 2nd
>> vaccine tomorrow.)
>>
>>
>