"Jeff Brooks" <jeff_brooks@n...> wrote in message
news:5gDkc.307996$Pk3.10538@pd7tw1no...
>
> I was curious what you guys think about binary formats vs text formats.
>
> Does the fact that the XML standards body is looking into binary XML
> affect any of your views?
>
> Information about their binary work is available here:
> http://www.w3.org/XML/Binary/
>
> Jeff Brooks

In my opinion, there are lots of things to consider before moving to binary
formats:

- Can an XML document be separate from the text that makes up the document?
The current XML recommendation only specifies the syntax in terms of text
strings (a sequence of characters). Anything else is not XML.

- Does file size matter? Storage and transmission capacities are continually
improved; will there be a market for binary XML when the [binary] Working
Group is done? Even so, will it be smaller than a gzipped XML file?

- Will binary XML be faster to load? Only if you assume that you do not need
to parse/validate the document. Do you trust binary XML to be correct at all
times?

- Will binary XML be faster to generate/serialize? I'm not so sure.

- Does it matter that the XML document is human readable and editable?


// Magnus