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RE: Article: "The horror of XML". :)

• To: <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: RE: Article: "The horror of XML". :)
• From: "Gerben Rampaart (Casnet Rotterdam)" <Gerben@C...>
• Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 17:16:40 +0100
• Importance: Normal
• In-reply-to: <4c.14269086.2af14649@a...>

In the article he says (when talking about programmers that are cheating for
performance improvements):

<quote>
Some of the techniques are relatively harmless, such as stuffing lots of
attributes into elements (for example, <shirt color="red"/> instead of
<shirt><color>red</ color></shirt>). This is legal and saves the parser from
having to handle several tags
</quote>

But this is not true, in fact it has been proven that choosing attributes or
choosing more nested elements has no impact on performance whatsoever.

<quote>
Even scarier is the emerging practice of rewriting parsers not to require
valid XML, such as not requiring end tags. Scary!
</quote>

Never seen those ... doubt I ever will. It breaks the complete concept of
XML.

On the same thing he continues:
<quote>
we'll be stuck with the same miserable situation, where you don't know which
browser can properly render which pages.
</quote>

No, we won't ... since every NORMAL parser will return a good old Fatal ...
therefore eliminating the possibility for this EVER to be Web related.

<quote>
On the other hand, if you're compromising the interoperability of XML,
you're effectively using a proprietary format, so you've got one less very
big reason to use XML to begin with. Why not use CORBA or COM or some other
binary interface that's far more efficient to begin with?
</quote>

What was it you said about 'agreeing on open standards' early in the article
??

<quote>
It uses lots of bandwidth, lots of storage, and lots of processing power.
</quote>

Yes ... but was it designed for a 2400 baud Internet ?? Have you taken a
look at how storage and processing power are growing these days ? And the
prices barely hold a candle by what they were.

<quote>
So before the horror of XML anarchy and balkanization strikes, save
yourselves! XML cheating is a trap from which you will never escape!
Bwahahahahahhah!
</quote>

O boy, what a strikingly professional conclusion ...

Gerben.


-----Original Message-----
From: AndrewWatt2000@a... [mailto:AndrewWatt2000@a...]
Sent: 30 October 2002 15:27
To: xml-dev@l...
Subject:  Article: "The horror of XML". :)


http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2896005,00.html

It's almost as if this guy was eavesdropping on our recent discussions.

But, what I want to know, is "Which of you guys are writing these alleged
XML
parsers which don't require end tags?". :) Shame on you! :)

Andrew Watt

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