[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Binary XML - summary of discussion to date
Ok. I'm creating a mailing list for this issue to get it off of xml-dev, since I'm sure not everyone wants to hear us ranting :-) To date: 1) There is still debate over the gains to be had from a binary format. There are widely varying claims of massive increases in efficiency or, in some cases, decreases. However, several domains that require binary storage (when there are embedded binaries, or random access, or in minimal-hardware systems) have certainly been identified. 2) There are existing binary-XML efforts, but many of them are domain specific; it would be advantageous to try to create a standard that people agree with to aid interoperability. 3) Some people are worried that standardising a binary format will encourage vendor-specific extensions to that format, but this has not been a problem for zip/png/jpeg and all the other successful open binary formats out there; in general, it is not "binaryness" that is at fault for this, it is vendor control of the format. Similar examples can be made for text files. 4) Regarding human-readability; if the format is ubiquitious like JPEG or ZIP or gzip, then there will be tools to view them, just like there are tools to examine zip files and so on. The human readability argument really only tells us that non-public proprietary standards are bad; it, again, is not really about text vs. binary. The fact that text viewers are very widely available already is a plus point for textual encoding, but it's probably of similar magnitude to the speed gain of binary encoding in many applications :-) 5) There are two quite well developed binary-XML projects lurking in the wings - the ITU XML / ASN.1 project - which requires feedback, an open reference implementation, and implementing in standard XML toolkits, and SDW's random access indexable format, which will be ideal for XML databases and similar large-dataset applications; by the sound of it, it's at a similar stage to the ITU one. It is my belief that we would probably be best helping one (or both) of these projects acheive ubiquitousness; perhaps the ASN.1 one (if we choose a good encoding, eg PER) for pipeline streaming applications and SDW's one for data storage. 6) http://lists.warhead.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/xml-bin - join, discuss, don't flame :-) 7) In a few months I may be available to write an RFC. That'd be nice. ABS -- Alaric B. Snell http://www.alaric-snell.com/ http://RFC.net/ http://www.warhead.org.uk/ Any sufficiently advanced technology can be emulated in software
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