Entities names?
Rob (wlkngowl@unix.asb.com)
Fri, 22 Aug 1997 18:23:44 -0500
Message-Id: <199708222232.SAA12011@unix.asb.com>
From: "Rob" <wlkngowl@unix.asb.com>
To: "Chris Wendt" <christw@microsoft.com>, <www-html@w3.org>
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 18:23:44 -0500
Subject: Entities names?
"Chris Wendt" <christw@microsoft.com> wrote on Fri, 22 Aug 1997 11:58:38:
> [..]
> I haven't seen any proof for the added "convenience" of adding more and more
> named entities. In the contrary this slows down the parser (you need to
> search a huge table) and transmission size (each character takes more bytes
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> than any other known document encoding).
Search a huge table? Search?!? What about using a hash lookup for
entities if speed is a concern?
character := entityTable[ hash(entityName) ]
Certainly the computing time to calculate a hash of several
characters to calculate an index in a table is minimal enough not to
degrade from performace, unless a document is filled with hundreds of
entity names.
As for the extra size issue, the added characters for entity
references is insignificant.
I favor source readability (even if I am using special software to
create a web page) over brevity.
Side question: will PNG images be added to MSIE so they can be
included using <IMG> or does one have to rely on plugins and the use
of <OBJECT> which is handled in a buggy manner by most browsers
(enough to make me avoid using it for years).
Rob
---
Robert Rothenburg Walking-Owl (wlkngowl@unix.asb.com)
(Se habla PGP.) http://www.wusb.org/mutant/