[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: Alternatives to browsers (was Re: Alternatives to the W3C)
"Hunter, David" wrote: > > From: Miles Sabin [mailto:msabin@c...] > Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2000 10:57 AM > > > > I'm having trouble seeing why XML over HTTP is preferable to > > eg. CORBA or Java RMI (maybe tunneled through HTTP if there's > > a need to traverse firewalls) for application specific comms. > > How is application specific markup better than an application > > specific binary wire protocol? > > The two thoughts off the top of my head: > > 1) It's easier to debug. If things are going wrong, it's pretty cool to be > able to just pull the data up in Notepad, and see if there's anything screwy > going on. Admittedly not a powerful reason at all. :-) Go back to the drawing board on that one ... higher developer productivity is a big deal!! ;-) > 2) The ability to swap in and out different clients, and leave the server > alone. If I want to use a Visual Basic client on my company's Windows > boxen, and C++ clients on my Mac boxen, and maybe Java on my UNIX boxen, > they can all still just communicate with the server via my XML document > type. I don't have to make everyone use Java, or lock myself into a > specific CORBA vendor, or use DCOM and make ALL my clients Windows boxen, > etc. If your CORBA vendor gives you lock-in, yell at them till they fix it ... that's a severe bug. XML + HTTP doesn't change that interop picture. However, I think it's true that since XML is text, most any programming tool nowadays can work with it at least a little bit, and that's not true of any normal RPC. One doesn't do bit-twiddling in VB, it's nasty for most protocols ... one needs expensive (and usually proprietary) tools to create DLLs to do the bit-twiddly stuff for you. The cross-platform interop story is one reason I never could support the RMI story ... there was none, and interoperability between systems is the driving force behind every networked application. - Dave xml-dev: A list for W3C XML Developers. To post, mailto:xml-dev@i... Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/ or CD-ROM/ISBN 981-02-3594-1 Please note: New list subscriptions now closed in preparation for transfer to OASIS.
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