[snip]
I have close to 10gb of web-server logs from the last 2 yrs and while t=
his
is theoretically appealing I, perhaps short-sightedly, have read everyt=
hing
that goes on here with an eye toward using XML as a, well, markup langu=
age
used for universal exchange, not as the be-all & end all of native
data-storage. "
I have to agree with your sentiments in many ways. Basically there is a=
lways a
tendency towards
seeing everything as a nail when you just have a hammer (witness the Ja=
va
phenomenon.) I believe
that overselling any technology is probably a bad thing and I think tha=
t XML is
being way oversold
in some cases (in many cases for no other reason than to increase a pro=
ducts
'buzz word quotient').
I assume that the market will prevail and stomp any really insane appli=
cations,
but I'm not always
sure of that. So here is my suggestion: CXML (pronounced sex-em-el in o=
rder to
make the
marketing types happy!)
<!DOCTYPE CCode SYSTEM "CCode.DTD">
<Include File=3D"stdio.h"/>
<ReturnVal Type=3D"int"/>
<Function Name=3D"main" Proto=3D"int (*)(int, char**)">
<Call Function=3D"printf" Format=3D"%s\n" Text=3D"Hello Wor=
d"/>
<Return Value=3D"1"/>
</Function>
What do you think? I believe I might have something here :-)
I think that we should keep in mind that we are using one of the piggie=
st
languages in the world to
access one of the least efficient object models in the world. Only wher=
e there
are gains to be had
that are signficant enough to overcome these problems should XML be the=
technology chosen to
solve the problem. There are many applications I've seen discussed wher=
e I
would have just
spent the 8 hours required to write a small custom parser and gotten 20=
times
the performance
for about the same amount of work.
Obviously in a data exchange situation with third parties it can make a=
lot of
sense, and for
document exchange it makes plenty of sense. But using it for a database=
format
or store store
a large amount of text like a log (which probably has such a simple for=
mat that
it could easily
be transformed to XML for export if that was required but which could u=
ntil
then be stored far more
easily and efficiently in some other way) or as a replacement for a ver=
y
efficient binary format
(which can also be transformed to XML when the need arises without payi=
ng for
the overhead
all of the time), I think that many of these are just solutions looking=
desparately for a problem that
someone else has already solved better.
Just my opinion of course... I'm not trying to squash XML, since I'm ge=
tting
paid to do it these
days. I just think that overselling a technology is worse in the end th=
an
admitting its not the answer
to world hunger. I think that Java has suffered tremendously by being s=
old as a
solution for
things its not up to dealing with.
----------------------------------------
Dean Roddey
Software Weenie
IBM Center for Java Technology - Silicon Valley
roddey@us.ibm.com
=