[XML-SIG] Recent CVS changes

[Gabe Wachob]

On 19 Dec 1998, Ken MacLeod wrote:

> Paul Prescod <paul@prescod.net> writes:
> 
> > Ken MacLeod wrote:
> > LDO looks like a *subset* of WDDX except for the REF element type. 
> 
> LDO's XML serialization may have fewer tags, but it does support all
> the semantics described above.  I would say it is actually a superset,
> because everything in WDDX can be encoded in LDO's XML serialization,
> but the reverse is not true.

Having worked a little with Ken on the LDO/Python stuff as well as the
WDDX stuff, I must say that they do serve very similar functions. Ken's
stuff I think has more "requirements" and thus is a little more
complicated. WDDX is simpler, and is much easier to implement (thats not a
knock against Ken's work -- his work is more ambitious, IMHO). 

The one thing I would say is that Ken's LDO specification relies more on
the processes at each end of the wire to decode what the information
traveling over the wire means in a semantic sense. LDO explicitly has no
concept of type (which leads to some thorny issues ;-), whereas WDDX has
hints or outright imposition of type information. 

I look at LDO as the "XML" of serialization, whereas WDDX is more like the
"HTML" of serialization (in that LDO can be used for more different
things, but it requires more work on the processing ends by application
writers).

If that isn't flame bait, I don't know what is ;-)

I like both. <cheek><tongue>Why can't we all get along!</tongue></cheek>
One will probably be used more widely than the other. I think LDO is more
consistent, but I think WDDX is obviously easier to use. One if written by
a really bright guy for a great opensource project (Casbah -
http://www.ntlug.org/casbah), one is written by a well-known
application-server company who have a lot of recognition. I don't know
which one will survive (hell, maybe they *both* will -- that'd be ok)

	-Gabe

 
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