RE: [Project] XML, Byte Encoded XML, How does it talk ?

[Colin Bradford <colin@xxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 24 May 2001, Primoz Gabrijelcic wrote:

> > > XML is fine for data transfer but for advertising of
functions and
> remote
> > > execution we should really use higher-level abstractions
(all using XML
> for
> > > data transfer) - SOAP comes to mind.
>
> I'd like to add that SOAP likes really promising - it is actually a
first
> (if I am not mistaken) open, cross-platform, cross-language protocol
for
> remote execution. And it is based on the text messaging (XML) and
therefore
> easy to process on any platform. There are SOAP libraries available
for
> almost everything, including Perl.

It's the third - CORBA is also open, cross-platform, cross-language,
has been around for a few years, and is supported by a wide variety of
suppliers. Sun RPC has been around for longer, and is very widely used -
for example, nfs relies on it.

Getting back to home automation:

I've been thinking about this problem for a while. I think SOAP/XML is
great for communication between fairly powerful processors - for
example, between a PC and a single board computer. However, I'm yet to
be convinced that it's great for smaller processors - for example, an
8051 controlling a keypad and LCD. I think it's too big, and too
difficult to parse - because it's so expressive. Just trying to store a
typical SOAP/XML message in the internal 128 bytes RAM on a 2051 would
be a challenge.

I like the idea of "byte encoded XML" - effectively using XML to
describe the data, without making the data self describing. If the
ordering of elements and attributes is also defined, then effectively
it's a typical "on-the-wire" protocol - a stream of bytes that
you have
to know something about. This makes it easy to parse without storing the
whole message, and easy to ignore bits you don't need.

I'll shut up at this point....

Cheers,

Colin.







Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/