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Re: Binary XML - summary of discussion to date

• From: Claude Seyrat <cseyrat@a...>
• To: "Al B. Snell" <alaric@a...>,The Deviants <xml-dev@l...>
• Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 17:51:47 +0200

Dear Alaric,

In your summary your forget to mention MPEG-7 which already defines 
a _generic_, compact and streamable binary format for XML.

Best regards,
Claude.

"Al B. Snell" wrote:
> 
> 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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-- 
______________________________________________

Claude Seyrat

Expway c/o Acland
18 avenue Georges V
75008 Paris
tel: 33 1 56 62 11 05
fax: 33 1 56 62 11 11
mail: claude.seyrat@e...

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