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Re: Pushing all the buttons

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: Re: Pushing all the buttons
• From: Sean McGrath <sean.mcgrath@p...>
• Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 08:58:17 +0100

[Dennis Sosnoski]
 >I have a hard time communicating with the hard-core text backers who 
appear to
 >see any transformation of XML (other than gzip, which apparently is 
blessed by
 >virtue of predating XML itself) as inherently evil.

Eh? As a hard-core text backer I'm not sure I understand you.

gzip performs a lossless compression. I use it with XML all the time. Works 
great. I use it on the wire too with HTTP. I've no problem with it, why 
would anyone have a problem given that the XML is unharmed?

Here is my simpletons guide to handling size in XML:

(1) If the size of your  XML-in-situ is thought to be a problem, gzip it. 
Example - OpenOffice.

(2) If the size of your XML-in-transit-on-the-wire is a problem, gzip it, 
preferably transparently to either end e.g. with HTTP compression.

(3) If, after trying these, the size of the XML is still seen as a problem, 
then **don't use XML as your native format at all**. Instead, provide 
lossless ToXML and FromXML input/output filters from your native object model.

(4) Beware programmers trying to treat XML like a set of database records. 
Many such programmers blame XML when then cannot load an *entire* record 
set into memory. The same programmers would never contemplate loading an 
entire database into memory. Approaching XML processing the wrong way (its 
just a database, right?) can lead to non-sequiters like binary XML.

Sean


http://seanmcgrath.blogspot.com

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