Re: XML and GNOME community

[Elliot Lee <sopwith redhat com>]

On Thu, 4 Jun 1998, Andrew Kuchling wrote:

> > 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.

I don't think that is a good idea.

See, the problem is HOW you are going to send those chunks of data from
a dragging application to the panel. Sure you can send it AS XML, but the
XML has to get there somehow.

CORBA does not dictate what, it takes care of how.

In addition, if you can decide upon a standard binary format, which CORBA
allows you to do by transferring data structures directly, you avoid all
the parsing overhead.

Now, if an application wants to accept test/xml as a drop type, it is
entirely free to, but I'm just pointing out that it would be so much
cooler for it to accept ior:application/x-panel-applet ;-)

Zot,
-- Elliot
When I die, I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather...
	...not yelling and screaming like the people in the back of the
	   plane he was flying.