Discussion
Personally I like it, but what really gets up my nose is the way its touted by all and sundry as a magic panacea for all computing ills - its just a text file FFS!
Recently we were forced to re-write the integration of one of our applications with a 3rd party app to use XML. "Bit annoying" we thought, "but never mind its easy enough. Don't know why they can't just leave the old interface in place and add a new one for the XML though". After completing the job, we subsequently discovered that what they'd done is simply hide the old interface, bolt on a new one to accept XML and then written code to translate the XML into a format suitable to be passed to the old "hidden" interface behind the scenes.
Recently we were forced to re-write the integration of one of our applications with a 3rd party app to use XML. "Bit annoying" we thought, "but never mind its easy enough. Don't know why they can't just leave the old interface in place and add a new one for the XML though". After completing the job, we subsequently discovered that what they'd done is simply hide the old interface, bolt on a new one to accept XML and then written code to translate the XML into a format suitable to be passed to the old "hidden" interface behind the scenes.
pdV6 said:
After completing the job, we subsequently discovered that what they'd done is simply hide the old interface, bolt on a new one to accept XML and then written code to translate the XML into a format suitable to be passed to the old "hidden" interface behind the scenes.
lmfao
They weren't Indians by any chance were they?
>> Edited by TheExcession on Wednesday 8th September 13:35
BliarOut said:
Don't shoot me, but what's so bad about XML?
It's not such a dumb question if you don't know the answer!!
There are no stupid questions, just stupid people
plotloss said:
XML if used correctly is probably the most powerful iteration in computing since client/server.
Problem is fundamentally with marketeers who attach XML to compliance to bloody everything.
For interoperability there is nothing better IMHO.
In pricipal it's great as plottloss has sugested any thing that by its very nature is extensible has got to be a good thing, but to me, at protocol levels it's just too heavy.
It's like I said before - why write one line of code when you could write three.
I cut my teeth in IT writing SNMP stacks and defining MIBS. These are just as extensible as XML - the difference being that in the 'those days' every bit on the wire counted for something and had a cost attached to it.
In my field these principals still hold true.
When I see XML stream down the line it just irritates the
out of me - especially when my customers are charged by the bit/byte. Look how long it's taken for HTTP to adopt a compression scheme, and still a very large number of sites are ignorant of its benefits and don't routinely use it.
I spent months hacking the Apache Proxy Server module to provide a system where our customers who ran an HTTP1.1 capable browser were guaranteed to get compressed HTTP data regardless of what pants the upstream server might be doing. This system generally cuts their satellite bills by around 40% - so many sites just don't stream compressed data.
It drives me mad, in this day of 1Mbit pipes into your bathroom, bedroom and garden shed no one seems to give a shit about what goes on the wire anymore?
Imagine how much faster the Internet would be if everyone would adhere to these principals?
best
Ex
>> Edited by TheExcession on Wednesday 8th September 13:36
True, but by that same token paying an EDI firm everytime you send a transmission was patently an unsustainable model.
I just wish people would get their act together over schema versions and inclusions.
Even after almost 5 years IBM, MS and W3C cant agree on which version of SOAP is the best one...
I just wish people would get their act together over schema versions and inclusions.
Even after almost 5 years IBM, MS and W3C cant agree on which version of SOAP is the best one...
plotloss said:
True, but by that same token paying an EDI firm everytime you send a transmission was patently an unsustainable model.
I just wish people would get their act together over schema versions and inclusions.
Even after almost 5 years IBM, MS and W3C cant agree on which version of SOAP is the best one...
Yeah, and remember lots of these wonderful inventions began life as a project by some spotty oink at university.
Education has a lot to answer for
Still, all in the name of progress I guess.
XML (like all technologies) has it's place and it is very useful. However the overhead of repeating your metadata is high.
I've recently worked on project where it was deemed better to extract data from a db into XML messages, stick them on a MQ hub, read them off the other end and write the data to a different db. Now given that both DB's were the same vendor and version (Oracle 9.2.0.1 fwiw), why they didn't just use a db link is beyond me.
Steve
I've recently worked on project where it was deemed better to extract data from a db into XML messages, stick them on a MQ hub, read them off the other end and write the data to a different db. Now given that both DB's were the same vendor and version (Oracle 9.2.0.1 fwiw), why they didn't just use a db link is beyond me.
Steve
fatsteve said:
XML (like all technologies) has it's place and it is very useful. However the overhead of repeating your metadata is high.
I've recently worked on project where it was deemed better to extract data from a db into XML messages, stick them on a MQ hub, read them off the other end and write the data to a different db. Now given that both DB's were the same vendor and version (Oracle 9.2.0.1 fwiw), why they didn't just use a db link is beyond me.
Steve
Consultants making their money?
It's funny how you can get a few people together to sort a 'problem' and only then begin to discover where the motives really lie.
Personally I'd rather work on something new but time and time again I see people reinventing the wheel simply because it pays their wage.
Still, in this case I could be wrong, maybe they just didn't have a
clue what they were doing. best
Ex
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