RE: Binary XML (was: Re: Draft minutes of 15 March 2005 Telcon)

First 2 paragraphs sound like a good summary of the BEA position paper
to the workshop :-)  Our mantra was and remains "0 is better than 2 (or
more) new formats".

But at this point, I think I need to actually read more of their
documents rather than speculate....

Cheers,
Dave

> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-tag-request@w3.org [mailto:www-tag-request@w3.org] On Behalf
Of
> Michael Champion
> Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2005 6:24 PM
> To: www-tag@w3.org
> Subject: Re: Binary XML (was: Re: Draft minutes of 15 March 2005
Telcon)
> 
> 
> > Why does this problem justify a binary XML standard?
> 
> This is precisely the question the TAG should focus on IMHO.  There is
> little doubt that there are many real-world problems with XML's size
and
> parsing overhead. I don't think there's a whole lot of point in
> disputing the Binary Characterization assessment of the problems.
Maybe
> they will go away with better parsers and compression schemes, or
maybe
> Moore's Law will make them irrelevant, but none of those sound like
safe
> bets.  What people have done is develop significantly faster and/or
> smaller encodings that have been shown to work for specific usage
> scenarios in tightly coupled environments, e.g. between an API and a
> DBMS engine, or for SOAP messages between two nodes built with the
same
> technology.
> 
> What is MUCH less clear to me (and, as you might have noticed at the
> Plenary sessions, several of my colleagues!) is whether a) there is
> evidence that a single binary XML standard could optimize both speed
and
> size across a wide range of use cases, and b) whether that degree of
> improvement justifies the very real social and economic costs that
> another XML encoding standard would impose. Yes, there are benefits
> (especially to the wireless industry), but could those benefits be
> achieved with industry-specific standards that don't attempt to come
up
> with a global compromise? We all know from bitter experience that such
> compromises are technically difficult to define and politically
> difficult to justify.
> 
> I would suggest that the burden of proof is on anyone writing a
charter
> for a followon binary XML WG to gather evidence to make the case that
a
> single binary XML standard could work across a wide range of XML
> scenarios. Presumably there are enough prototype
formats/implementations
> out there to be analyzed according to the Binary XML Characterization
> WG's criteria so that this should not be an unreasonably high hurdle
to
> overcome.   Then it could be the task of the TAG and AC to weigh
> whatever those demonstrable benefits might be against the likely
costs,
> and use that information to rigorously justify a decision to pursue
(or
> not) a binary XML Recommendation-track WG.

Received on Friday, 18 March 2005 02:28:40 UTC