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Re: Re: Pushing all the buttons

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: Re: Re: Pushing all the buttons
• From: ari@c... (K. Ari Krupnikov)
• Date: 21 Sep 2003 10:02:01 -0700
• In-reply-to: <20030921145640.20316.qmail@w...>
• References: <20030921145640.20316.qmail@w...>
• Sender: ari@l...
• User-agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.3

Mike Champion <mc@x...> writes:

> --- Andrzej Jan Taramina <andrzej@c...> wrote:
> 
> >  "Premature optimization
> > is the root of all evil" 
> > syndrome.
> 
> Right, premature optimization is indeed the root of
> much evil. But after 6 or so years of experience with
> XML, it doesn't seem appropriate to label concern
> about XML's inefficiency "premature."  

It's not how long XML has been around, it's how much experience people
have with it and /the specific XML project they want to optimize/ who
are demanding an "optimized" XML.

How long did it take for people to accept 3GL languages? It's been a
while since I heard someone say C was inefficient and he was going to
write a project in assembly (c.1997, and he was describing a past
project). Certainly, when Java was 6 years old (2001), one kept
hearing how inefficient it was, and how you really need to rewrite the
inner loop as a native function. I tend to think the reason I don't
hear about Java's inefficiency anymore has to do more with a big
vendor big on publicity adopting a very similar approach than with the
time that's passed or advances in JIT technology.

"I really like Java, if only I could make it a little bit more
efficient... I'll start with compilation to native executables,
because bytecode is too fat on the wire and takes a long time to parse
in the VM. An unfortunate side effect will be that I'll need to drop
reflection, but nobody uses that obscure feature anyway. Also, dynamic
linking will have to go, but that's ok, Java's designers overestimated
how useful it would be anyway."

Of course, many of the people who demand binary XML don't start with
"I really like XML", but something completely different.

Ari.

• References:
  • Re: Re: Pushing all the buttons
    • From: Mike Champion <mc@x...>

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