Re: Binary Infosets

On Wednesday, October 9, 2002, 6:27:29 PM, Robin wrote:


RB> Hi,

RB> while reading the webarch WD I came accross a point that surprised me 
RB> slightly in section 3.3 (http://www.w3.org/TR/webarch/#formats-ideas). 
RB> Point 8 mentions "Effect of Mobile on architecture - size, complexity, 
RB> memory constraints. Binary infosets, storage efficiency."

As you can tell from the, uh, "terse" writing style this section is
not mature at all. It is mainly a framework in which to slot
existing, in-progress questions and also attempts to anticipate some
likely future questions.

The part you cite falls into the latter category. Some mobile
implementors are working on this, for example the CVG format from 3GPP
or nva from Sharp or, as you note, the expway stuff. Equally, there
seems to be a strong sentiment from the (mainly desktop) developers
that there should only be one serialization of the infoset.

And yet, we tell the mobile folks that they should not use WAP and
whatever but should use XHTML Basic and SMIL Basic and SVG Tinty and
so forth. And they tell us that the http-level binary compression,
which works well on the desktop, does not work well for them because
the main issue is storage efficiency on the client while being used.

So, clearly, this area is going to produce a request to the TAG at
some point and in anticipation of that, the section as you quote it
exists.

RB> Given that binary infosets (currently, binary PSVIs[1]) is what I work 
RB> on daily and that I am currently investigating ways in which they could 
RB> fit naturally into the web (content-coding registration for instance), I 
RB> would be very interested in knowing what -- if anything at this point -- 
RB> the TAG thinks of them and of how they could best fit in.

The TAG has not discussed them and thus has no collective opinion at
this point, but several TAG members are aware of the issue.


-- 
 Chris                            mailto:chris@w3.org

Received on Wednesday, 9 October 2002 17:58:11 UTC