[XML-SIG] Re: Look what these folks are doing with XML

[Ken MacLeod]

Lars Marius Garshol <larsga@ifi.uio.no> writes:

> * Michael Dillon
> |
> | Remote Procedure Calls using XML
> | http://www.scripting.com/98/04/stories/simpleCrossNetworkScript.html
> 
> Maybe there's something about this I just didn't understand, but to
> me it seems that they could have achieved the exact same thing with
> CORBA much more easily and the result would probably also have been
> more efficient in terms of both bandwidth and speed.

That's true in part, but CORBA is also a lot more strict, tightly
coupled, and not directly intended for ``lightweight'' data.  One
_could_ use CORBA to build a foundation for something lighter, but it
also turns out that you can also encode the higher level directly just
as easily (like pickling).

That said, XML still isn't a very efficient encoding for this either,
the overhead in parsing arbitrary XML is enormous.  I think it's good
idea to start at the top level using XML, so any scripter or coder
with an XML parser can participate.  Then you formalize your
structures a bit and allow clients and servers to negotiate a more
efficient encoding.

With that said, note that the above URL is only talking about simple
remote procedure calls with a small list of data types.  They've yet
to discuss any OO concepts, much less the semantic layering that
something like Apple's Open Scripting Architecture allows for (Dave
has mentioned elsewhere that he'd like to support OSA-style
messaging).
-- 
  Ken MacLeod
  ken@bitsko.slc.ut.us