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RE: SAX for Binary Encodings (SAD-SAX)

• To: <bob@w...>, "'Amelia A Lewis'" <amyzing@t...>
• Subject: RE: SAX for Binary Encodings (SAD-SAX)
• From: Elliotte Rusty Harold <elharo@m...>
• Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 12:37:15 -0500
• Cc: <xml-dev@l...>
• In-reply-to: <000f01c3a614$7a3e3600$650aa8c0@BOBDEV>
• References: <000f01c3a614$7a3e3600$650aa8c0@BOBDEV>

At 11:22 AM -0500 11/8/03, Bob Wyman wrote:


>	Frankly, I'm a bit surprised by all the heat that has been
>generated by what I thought was a very simple proposal. Clearly there
>is something I'm not understanding... Please bear with me as I try to
>be more explicit about what I'm suggesting. Then, *PLEASE* let me know
>what it is that I'm not understanding...

It is not at all simple. What you are proposing is a bullet aimed at 
the heart of XML. There is no binary data in XML. None. Zip. Zero. 
Zilch. Nada. There is no data except text.

You are proposing to add binary data to the core of XML. When you 
tell me that you want to pass 32-bit integers as pure binary, then 
you are saying that 7, 07, +07, 0007, and so forth are the same 
thing. They are not. The data model on which your SAD SAX API is 
based makes assumptions about XML that are not true for many people. 
You are restricting XML to one data model, and claiming other data 
models are irrelevant.

All data in an XML document is text, never anything else. How that 
text is instantiated into locally useful data structures is a local 
decision. It is certainly not something you'd want to exchange on the 
Internet, and it is is absolutely not something that should be baked 
into the core APIs.

-- 

   Elliotte Rusty Harold
   elharo@m...
   Effective XML (Addison-Wesley, 2003)
   http://www.cafeconleche.org/books/effectivexml
   http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0321150406/ref%3Dnosim/cafeaulaitA

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: SAX for Binary Encodings (SAD-SAX)
    • From: Alaric B Snell <alaric@a...>
  • Re: SAX for Binary Encodings (SAD-SAX)
    • From: Liam Quin <liam@w...>
  • RE: SAX for Binary Encodings (SAD-SAX)
    • From: "Bob Wyman" <bob@w...>

• References:
  • RE: SAX for Binary Encodings (SAD-SAX)
    • From: "Bob Wyman" <bob@w...>

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