RE: [XCON] On encodings

["Sean Olson" <Sean.Olson at microsoft.com>]

To be fair, JSON is pushed because of its ubiquitous support in
Javascript-enabled browsers. LUMAS doesn't have the same appeal because
it would be yet another new encoding. XML is not perfect and not
something I would try to use to solve all problems. Yet, it's use in the
conferencing event package, presence, and other SIP/SIMPLE/SIPPING
protocols makes it an attractive candidate for re-use. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Pete Cordell [mailto:pete at tech-know-ware.com] 
Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 8:32 AM
To: Henning Schulzrinne
Cc: XCON-IETF
Subject: Re: [XCON] On encodings

----- Original Message From: "Henning Schulzrinne" <hgs at cs.columbia.edu>

> Thanks for the summary. I'll just add that having the IETF, in a  
> small niche of its portfolio, go out and invent a new text encoding  
> that nobody else uses and is likely to use (sorry...) seems just  
> plain hubris. We're no longer in the world of one-off systems where  
> we build every system from scratch as if the only tool in our tool  
> kit was a C compiler (I suspect some people here would actually
prefer assembler...).
>
> Every new encoding means new libraries, means new possibilities for 
> buffer overflows, new porting for every language from C to C# to PHP  
> to Java to Perl to Ruby, new training, new debugging tools and new 
> interoperability testing. I can choose among dozens of XML and SOAP 
> libraries, maintained by the largest IT corporations on the planet if 
> that's my choice, and a corresponding number of tools, from open  
> source to XMLspy and kin. Why in the world would a sane developer  
> create their own new niche encoding when the rest of their system is  
> going to be built using modern software tools and will already have
to support XML anyway?
>
> I'm afraid I'm not going to be spending time on Lumas analysis, I'm  
> sorry to say. The IETF is a tiny part of the software universe and  
> needs to learn to play nice with the 99.9% of the developers that  
> don't show up at IETF meetings.

But people still seem to be happy to invent new binary encodings such as
BFCP, AVPs, and new ABNF grammars such as MRCP that have all the
problems that you mention above.  Why is that?

People are even pushing JSON, when they have access to all the XML tools
that you mention (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSON).  This is used
extensively by the likes of Google and Yahoo even though they have all
the resources to run XML services.

Like you, I would like the encoding debate to go away as well.  Your
approach is to pretend that there's no problem.  My approach is to
design a system that has the high-level design benefits of XSD, the
debuggability of a text protocol, and the compactness of a binary
protocol.  With Lumas there would be nothing to debate, and we could get
on with more interesting things.

It seems I also have more faith in the development capabilities of
developers.  If Microsoft (and Borland) can knock out C# then they're
not going to be bothered by Lumas.  Heck they can get the C and Perl
versions from my web site now.

Don't get me wrong.  XML is great.  But it is not the be all and end
all. 
In programming I use C++ for some things, Perl for other things, PHP/SQL
for yet more things, C# for other other things.  It depends on the
problem I'm tackling.  Why shouldn't I have the same choices for message
definition?

Pete.
--
=============================================
Pete Cordell
Tech-Know-Ware Ltd
                         for XML to C++ data binding visit
                         http://www.tech-know-ware.com/lmx
                         (or http://www.xml2cpp.com)
=============================================
. 



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