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Re: Binary XML == "spawn of the devil" ?

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: Re: Binary XML == "spawn of the devil" ?
• From: Mike Champion <mc@x...>
• Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2003 10:00:49 -0400
• In-reply-to: <NBBBIBMKFOFCNEBAKDPLEEHPGCAA.xml-dev@b...>
• References: <NBBBIBMKFOFCNEBAKDPLEEHPGCAA.xml-dev@b...>
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On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 11:52:42 +0100, Paul Spencer <xml-dev@b...> 
wrote:


>
> They tried XML down the wire with very simple compression and found that
> they were transferring data faster than previously.

I'm hoping that people will come to the W3C workshop with some hard data 
and profiling information.  Obviously there are LOTS of variables governing 
the value of "binary" formats in a system:

- The speed of the processors on both ends
- The bandwidth of the connection
- The tightness of the format coupling between the apps at each end
- The availability of well-tuned compression, XML, etc. utilities on the 
platforms
- The volume of transactions expected
- The time-criticality of results in the worst case

AFAIK, compression alone makes a big difference when you have a slow 
connection or lots of traffic on a fast connection but also lots of 
horsepower on at least the compressing end.  It can actually slow things 
down if you have a fast network and overloaded processors. ASN.1 and 
friends work really well when you have tight schema coupling and the "self- 
describing" XML markup is just noise. And none of these performance 
optimizations matter if you don't have many transactions or you don't care 
how long they take. Finally, NOTHING will help people who prematurely 
optimize the bits of an application that are not actual performance 
bottlenecks!

I'm hoping we can get enough information to get past the "binary XML is 
evil", "XML is bloated and slow", etc. generalizations and understand the 
alternatives and tradeoffs more thoroughly. 

• Follow-Ups:
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• References:
  • RE: Binary XML == "spawn of the devil" ?
    • From: "Paul Spencer" <xml-dev@b...>

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