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RE: "Binary XML" proposals

• From: "Christopher R. Maden" <crism@m...>
• To: xml-dev@l...
• Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 13:31:13 -0700

At 07:35 10-04-2001, Al Snell wrote:
>In *my* binary XML format project

Therein, I think, lies the rub.

As you noted, any binary XML format must contain exactly as much 
information as the text form.  That means that a sufficiently good 
compression algorithm combined with the text form will be as compact as the 
directly binary form.  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.

-Chris
-- 
Christopher R. Maden, XML Consultant
DTDs/schemas - conversion - ebooks - publishing - Web - B2B - training
<URL: http://crism.maden.org/consulting/ >
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