[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message]

RE: Binary vs. tagged data formats was: Re: Re: Pushing all th

• To: 'Jonathan Borden' <jonathan@o...>
• Subject: RE: Binary vs. tagged data formats was: Re: Re: Pushing all the buttons
• From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>
• Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2003 08:21:50 -0500
• Cc: "'andrzej@c...'" <andrzej@c...>, Mike Champion <mc@x...>, xml-dev@l...

True.  It is reasonably straightforward to tokenize 
XML at the infoset definition.  Then one can drop to 
the name sets and using a schema, do a good job a la 
WAP, MPEG and so forth.  Where the rubber meets the 
road in the graphics is in the content:  what is between 
the pointies, and that is what the X3D spec group has 
been working.  I'm not that conversant with the work, but 
have kept up with some of the public discussions.

So to me, the argument that 'we must get a handle on 
the wild' arguments aren't compelling until one can 
show an advantage big enough for ALL of the efforts. 
That may be the case but I note that most of the 
binaries I know about were done not to fix the XML 
problems, but to optimize particular applications with 
particular problems.  I am interested to see what 
comes out of Liam's workshop.

len

From: Jonathan Borden [mailto:jonathan@o...]

A few years ago (e.g. circa 1998) I thought it would be a good idea to 
develop an XML representation of the tagged binary ACR/NEMA DICOM 
standard for (Digital Image COmmunication for Medicine). Well, it turns 
out that when you are transmitting megabyte -> terabyte hunks of data 
around, that having a full network protocol stack may actually be the 
way to go (DICOM is mostly over TCP/IP but there is a spec for a DICOM 
physical layer connector (i.e. a wire :-).

It also turns out that developing an XML representation of a tagged 
binary format (modulo chunks of raw image data) is a fairly easy thing 
to do .... hmm it looks like Robin Cover has archives one of my efforts 
at this here: http://xml.coverpages.org/DICOM-dtds.zip and see: 
http://xml.coverpages.org/astmHealthcare.html

That said, aside from the "gee I can turn anything into XML!" factor, I 
think there is a perfectly good place for binary data formats where they 
are appropriate, so several years later I am still using DICOM -- many 
many times a day, but haven't spent much time actually using the 
XMLization I created.

• Follow-Ups:
  • RE: Binary vs. tagged data formats was: Re: Re: Pushing all the buttons
    • From: "Andrzej Jan Taramina" <andrzej@c...>

• Prev by Date: compability SQL Server - Java?
• Next by Date: RE: Binary vs. tagged data formats was: Re: Re: Pushing all the buttons
• Previous by thread: compability SQL Server - Java?
• Next by thread: RE: Binary vs. tagged data formats was: Re: Re: Pushing all the buttons
• Index(es):
  • Date
  • Thread