RE: Review of EXI

Jochen Darley writes:

> I am unable to find / read these:
> 
>  > [4]
>  > http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/member-exi-wg/2007Mar/0014.html
>  > [5]
>  > http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/member-exi-wg/2007Sep/0010.html

These references are available to W3C members, and they are there as of 
this morning.  He also quotes David Orchard:

 >> Shall we try and ask all these folks whether they're OK with at
>> least IBM's note being posted in a public place?  If not, I think it
>> will be frustrating for your 
>> readers to find the link and not be able to follow it.
> 
> Let's get the IBM note into public space.

In response to that, I posted [1] to the public TAG list.  I don't see any 
further followup.  Quoting a bit from [1]:

" I doubt that anyone in IBM would object to having a copy posted in a 
public archive, and if you'd like I could in principle check with my IBM 
colleagues.  I say in principle because our note also refers to some 
correspondence among a smaller group of individuals in the W3C.  It was 
originally written as input to the chairs and W3C staff, and I think we 
would need the permission of this [sic] individuals as well."

"[...]"

"I think it's fair to say that IBM believes that EXI offers interesting 
compression on XML, and some speed gains in many use cases;  we also think 
that the speed gains over well optimized text implementations are not 
nearly as great as might be inferred from the measurements presented by 
the EXI group.  The issues include many that you've put into your note, 
Dave (choice and weighting of test cases, use of Java, etc.) "

Note that Rob Cameron of Simon Fraser University has since published work 
[2] suggesting that if processor hardware is used carefully, ordinary XML 
can be parsed up to 3x faster than we in IBM achieved, even further 
narrowing the speed advantage for a binary format like EXI.  We in IBM are 
also concerned that quite a range of use cases were offered as goals when 
EXI was started.  It's not clear that the benchmarks used to validate the 
design are sufficiently representative of optimized implementations of 
those use cases (in either XML or EXI) to support the publication of EXI 
as a full W3C Recommendation.  Here I am just responding informally to 
your note:  IBM's formal response on EXI will come through the usual 
channels from our AC representative as EXI proceeds through the W3C 
process (and for the record, I don't >think< we've set a firm position for 
ourselves as to what  that response will likely be.)

Noah

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2007Oct/0159.html
[2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2008Feb/0090.html

--------------------------------------
Noah Mendelsohn 
IBM Corporation
One Rogers Street
Cambridge, MA 02142
1-617-693-4036
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Received on Thursday, 31 July 2008 19:10:47 UTC