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On Tue, 10 Apr 2001, Christopher R. Maden wrote:
> As you noted, any binary XML format must contain exactly as much
> information as the text form.
Wrong. Exactly as much *useful* information. The binary format can miss
out a whole load of redundant cruft that helps fleshlings follow the plot,
but has to be located and discarded by a computer.
> That means that a sufficiently good
> compression algorithm combined with the text form will be as compact as the
> directly binary form.
Only if the compression algorithm knows enough about XML to know which
bits can be ignored. Which is what I'm proposing, basically.
> On the other hand, if I get "XML", I can open it,
> examine it, and in the absence of any other information, take a pretty good
> guess at its meaning (as Walter Perry is so fond of pointing out). If I
> get compressed data in some well-known form, like gzip, I can uncompress it
> pretty easily. If I get Al's Binary Structure Format, what the heck do I
> do with it? The drawbacks seem prohibitive and the benefits minimal.
Dude, we covered this point... read the thread!
>
> -Chris
>
ABS
--
Alaric B. Snell
http://www.alaric-snell.com/ http://RFC.net/ http://www.warhead.org.uk/
Any sufficiently advanced technology can be emulated in software
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