Article:		Binary XML, Again
Subject:		It has its uses
Date:		2007-10-29 07:29:58
From:		Haravikk
I've been working with a proprietary Binary XML format for a while now, and while I agree with a lot of the things mentioned already regarding there being no real need, I am finding a lot of valid applications for it. Further, I am intending to produce an application which will run across multiple servers, the aim then is to use either SOAP messages or plain XML (probably the latter, not a big fan of SOAP), this is because should a message become blocked or otherwise require queued, or a connection drops for example, then I can easily write my message as text XML somewhere where it will be readable, using exactly the same code as outputting it to my connection. However, I have limited network bandwidth (compared to the throughput of the distributed program) so this makes plain-text XML not as great since it adds overhead and the potential for a bottle-neck. In my case, a binary XML format is ideal for communicating between machines/application instances, as it reduces the memory overhead and hopefully reduces the processing of messages that are being actively sent. Also due to the nature of the connection (persistent, sending the XML messages from the same schema) I can get some pretty big savings just by using basic compression techniques. So IMO, a standard for streaming XML is fine, being able to stream between languages without porting code would be AWESOME; but as a replacement to XML (ie for saving files) it is completely pointless, since these-days the memory footprint is negligible and it would remove arguably XML's one greatest advantage (readability/ease-of-editing).

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