Proceedings

Abstract:

XML's core value proposition is that it is a text-based, platform-neutral markup approach to describing a wide range of document and data formats that provides a good compromise between the conflicting needs of humans and machines. It is becoming apparent, however, that these advantages come at a significant cost in terms of the overhead required to store and process data. This has been the subject of considerable investigation that has been presented at a W3C-sponsored workshop in September 2003 and in a Workshop on High Performance XML Processing held in conjunction with the WWW 2004 Conference. This paper attempts to pull together what is actually known on this subject and to provide an evenhanded analysis of options that have been put forth to address the performance problems. A firm conclusion on what is "best" is impossible in principle, given the range of requirements and use cases for XML. The objective here is to support an informed discussion of the situation and options to address it, not to advocate for or against a specific solution.