Re: XML and GNOME community

[Andrew Kuchling <amk1 erols com>]

Elliot Lee writes:
> I know Miguel has said he wants to use OLE2 for the component model, and
> he gave a fairly good description that helps me understand what specific
> benefits putting OLE2 in would give. However, I don't understand any
> specific benefits of XML beyond it being a nice HTML replacement and
> standard data interchange format. Without using any buzzwords or acronyms,
> can you explain why it's useful to a desktop environment? 

	Well, drag-and-drop and communication with the panel could be
implemented by sending chunks of XML back and forth, instead of using
CORBA.

Advantages:
	Simpler to implement than a whole new implementation of CORBA.
	Can use existing Python/Perl/Java/whatever XML support,
instead of having to write bindings to a CORBA library.
	Readable format for debugging

Disadvantages:
	Adds XML generation, and then parsing, overhead to each d-n-d
operation.  If operations are infrequent and the data isn't too large,
this may not be a problem.
	Code bloat from every app having an XML parser in it.  Having a
libexpat.so would fix that.

I can't think of any really strong arguments either way, assuming that 
ORBit actually gets implemented.

-- 
A.M. Kuchling			http://starship.skyport.net/crew/amk/
He spoke to the embryonic silicon dreams who clustered in a far ballroom, and
whispered to them, briefly, about the other machines that had dreamed in the
distant past.
    -- From a week in Dream's life, in SANDMAN #64: "The Kindly Ones:8"