[XML-SIG] Developer's Day

[Fredrik Lundh]

Sean Mc Grath <sean@digitome.com> wrote:
> At 12:21 PM 12/18/99 -0600, Paul Prescod wrote:
> >What's the point of standards if implementors violate them willy nilly?

professional software development has always been
(and will always be) about making the right tradeoffs.
some examples:

    the "xmllib" tradeoff is "if you have python, it's
    there. cannot handle everything, so it's best
    to use in cases where you know the source".

    the "sgmlop" tradeoff is "like xmllib, but much
    faster."

    the "SXP" tradeoff (this is our upcoming sgmlop
    replacement) is "like sgmlop, but usually faster,
    fully supports utf-8 and unicode, and is written
    in pure python 1.6 (!)"

I don't use the xml-sig distribution, but several
people have described it as "huge, bloated, slow,
but mostly compliant".

good enough for some, in other words.  but
hardly for anyone.

"You told us to use Python for this million dollar
system but halfways through its second day of
operation, we realized that the production XML
files were large enough to bring the server back-
bone to its knees.  We now have several gigabytes
sitting in the input queue, and no way to catch
up.  The system simply isn't fast enough."

> I would like to propose that the XML-SIG
> takes on board the task of producing an
> "XML features manifest (XFM)" and then
> producing XFM declarations for all the
> applications that make up the XML-SIG
> distribution.

exactly what's needed to make the right trade-
off...  after all, most of us are likely to be pro-
gramming professionals *and* XML amateurs at
the same time.  if you need a certain kind of
programmer to be able to successfully use XML
in a project, the technology is DOA.

</F>