[Python-Dev] Performance of various marshallers (original) (raw)

Skip Montanaro skip@pobox.com (Skip Montanaro)
Tue, 2 Oct 2001 21:16:40 -0500 

>> Paul, you have to stop looking at XML-RPC with your Elton John-style
>> XML-colored glasses.  XML-RPC is not meant to be some sort of highly
>> structured hierarchical data representation that you can sniff around
>> in with arbitrary XML tools of one sort or another. That its
>> on-the-wire representation happens to be XML is almost ridiculously
>> unimportant.

Paul> XML-RPC uses XML for exactly the same reason every other
Paul> application of XML uses XML.

I disagree with that. Lots of applications use XML because it's got that pants-wetting capability I described earlier.

>> Fine.  I'm sure Shilad appreciates the input.  I think your approach
>> to bug detection and reporting could have been a bit less heavy
>> handed.

Paul> I'm not trying to embarrass Shilad. The software isn't at 1.0
Paul> yet. Maybe he hasn't got around to choosing an XML parser.

Or maybe he has a different set of constraints than you.

Paul> I'm trying to point out (more to you, than to him!) that there is
Paul> a good reason to build on the work other people have done. If
Paul> pyxmlrpc is faster today it is probably because it doesn't conform
Paul> to the specs.  When it does conform, it won't be faster anymore.

Why point this out to me? I am essentially just an XML-RPC user, not an implementer. I happen to be interested in making my XML-RPC-using code run faster. If I have to make some sacrifices I could care less, as long as my clients and my servers can talk to one another.

>> As for handling things like CDATA, UTF-16 and extra whitespace after
>> tag names, I suspect some other XML-RPC packages would exhibit
>> similar problems if they were exposed to a standards-toting XML
>> gunslinger like yourself.  That it's not a problem in practice is
>> probably because the set of XML-RPC encoding and decoding software is
>> fairly small and that the stuff that encodes into XML-RPC is fairly
>> well-behaved.

Paul> Every XML-RPC implementation I have ever used (Python, Perl, C,
Paul> C++, PHP) is based upon one pure XML parser or another. Most use
Paul> Expat.

Oh well.

S