Re: [DotGNU]Disadvantages of XML

[Gopal.V]

Hi Matthew,
> Funny,
> 
>     You say you're aguing the downsides of XML and, in fact, impressed me 
> with it's potential.  
        You have just seen the tradeoffs XML has made to become a *PRACTICAL*
standard.
>    Text compresses very and there is a world of ideas to be explored for 
> improving parsing performance and presentation methods.  Furthermore, gzipped 
> XML is a natural standard, not only Dia and Gnumeric, but all of KDE uses it 
> for all document formats.
        Sorry, the only KDE tools I use are kppp & konqueror. I haven't noticed
others. But Gzip is only a half measure for XML, we really need to develop
an XML specific compression (psuedo-lossive) and put that into libxml & 
port/wrap it in other languages (read Java,Python,Php....).
>     Wouldn't it be great to standardize file formats on a GNU Zip utility, 
> even if it spills into the Windows world?
        W3C could easily adopt gzipped XML as a potential format. eg HTTP has
already an option for compressed data transfer [Accept-Encoding: deflate,gzip]
Also support for gzip is quite common (read java.util.zip.*).
> >
> > * The DTD Aspect
> >     - The DTD is intellectual property (that gives me the
> >       creeps, coz that means it can be patented).
> >     - If a large company patents, say a document format
> >       DTD, they will defend it well. So we are left with
> >       a format that is useless even though you can see the
> >       source.(open source ,M$ style !)
> >     - Generic parsers will ensure that the format can be
> >       parsed. But I wouldn't put it past M$ not to go and
> >       create MSXML which cannot be parsed in a normal parser.
        Any comments on the above aspect ?

Gopal.V
-- 
 The difference between insanity and genius is only measured by success
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