Can XML Be Efficient? W3C Thinks So

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Can XML Be Efficient? W3C Thinks So
You have to wonder about the W3C sometimes. It took two years (a "W3C minute") to respond to the concern that XML files take too long (and use up too much processor power) to parse. It's a legitimate complaint - if you've tried to access my site and found it stalled, it's because Edu_RSS, which reads RSS, is parsing XML files. So what's the W3C's response? Binary XML. Not surprisingly, it hasn't been greeted with enthusiasm. Because it means that we would have to compress and decompress XML files, and then still parse them. In the meantime, I look at things like JSON, where the data comes in a package that needs no parsing at all. More...