Re: XML and GNOME community

[Erik Andersen <andersen inconnect com>]

On Fri, 5 Jun 1998, Michael Zucchi wrote:

> 
> Poor example.  Just re-configure the fire-wall to let it through, or
> pipe it through a tunnel (yes, lets open a remote system
> administration port to the whole world?  I dont think so ...).
> 
> Either way, they are merely tcp connections, which is what firewalls
> are designed to have fine control over ...
> 
> XML might be ok for a clip board, or DnD, but does it have the
> richness and performance and semantics for remote object
> manipulations?
> 
>  Z

I am not advocating XML as the One True(tm) way of doing things.  
Personally, I couldn't care less if GNOME uses it or not. I was
merely explaining one way XML could be used where using pure CORBA could 
be challenging.  Of course, this method would have problems too (such as 
writing an HTTP listener for the ORB).  

I think XML certainly has the needed richness and semantics since it is fully
extensible and can utilize external scripting languages such as Javascript
(ugh) or Scheme (more Gnome friendly).  I havn't any idea about performance,
but it would certainly add in an extra parsing/interpreting layer that
CORBA binary objects wouldn't have.  Whether it is the Right Thing(tm) or
not... It certainly isn't a substitute for CORBA (as the original poster
on this thread seemed to suggest), but for certain tasks (such as for a 
clipboard as you mention or for certain types of inter-process communication) 
it really is well suited.  But not well suited enough for _me_ to write
stuff for it though [GRIN].  I already have plenty of projects on my plate. 
Punting to those that care...

 -Erik

--
Erik B. Andersen   Web:    http://www.inconnect.com/~andersen/ 
                   email:  andersee@debian.org
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