Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

W3C launches Binary XML Packaging

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the huge-config-files-scared dept.

Spy der Mann writes "Remember the recent discussion on Binary XML? Well, there's news. The W3C just released the specs for XML-binary optimized packaging (XOP). In summary, they take binary data out of the XML, and put it in a separate section using MIME-Multipart. You can read the press release and the testimonials from MS, IBM and BEA."

4 of 239 comments (clear)

  1. Re:nothing else to work on? by tomhudson · · Score: 4, Insightful
    There are some real technical problems out there... why are people chasing non-problems like XML?
    Because they're hacks more into buzzword bingo and "selling the next big thing"?

    Whatever happened to the virtues of simplicity, like a file containing a header record detailing the field names, and rows containing the data in either fixed-length or delimited form? Damn fast to implement, debug, read from and write to. Parsing? What parsing? Read the first line, split it to get your headers, and read 1 line per record.

    Ideal for data exchange. Easy to manipulate via javascript on the client. Simple to display and manipulate via the DOM (Document Object Model). Not resource-hungry. Handles both text and binary data. Dirt easy on the server.

    I ran a test to compare, and I'm able to select, format, and serve 1000 records this way in less time than 100 records in simple HTML, never mind xml. By doing this, the client can page through, say, 25 records at a time without having to hit the server every few seconds to see the next/prev pages.

  2. More bloat! by Hobart · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I thought this was going to be about a standardization of compressing XML files that got rid of the excess bloat in the markup.
    So did I. Then I looked at that example and my heart sank. What the hell! 12 lines of bloated crap text turned into 46+ lines of worse bloated crap!

    And they're going to do what, say "gzip it" ? The amount of bandwidth and CPU time this wastes is abysmal.

    Someone needs to stop these people.
    --
    o/~ Join us now and share the software ...
    1. Re:More bloat! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So did I. Then I looked at that example [w3.org] and my heart sank. What the hell! 12 lines of bloated crap text turned into 46+ lines of worse bloated crap!

      The examples given in the article haven't included the binary data for berevity. The problem that exists now is that binary data has to be encoded into a form compatible with the charset of the document, which usually means base64. This increases the size of binary documents enourmously (think twice), and also requires CPU cycles to encode it.

      Being able to send the binary data in a seperate MIME payload means it doesn't need to be encoded in this manner which is a big help for any reasonable sized binary resources. It also means they become first class MIME objects and can have associated headers which provides additional benefits.

  3. This is NOT binary XML by IHateSlashDot · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I can't believe all of the replies making fun of this because they think it's a binary representation of XML. Didn't anyone read the RFC that was referenced in the summary?

    This is simply a way to reference binary data from within an XML document and to have that binary data included in the same payload (using MIME).

    Passing binary data in XML is a big problem. Everybody just invents their own method of doing it (although most are just variations on the theme presented here).

    There is a need for this specicification but it is not ground breaking or even particularly /. newsworth.