Not much. Except that it general it creates BIG
datasets. In fact, the XML spec states: "Terseness in XML
markup is of minimal importance". Some typical numbers: a
colleague's recent ASCII database dump of about 9MB turned into
25MB in XML for network transfer. Why is this a problem?
An oft-quoted(?) technology axiom states (approximately):
"Bandwidth and batteries do not follow Moore's Law".
That is, whilst CPUs roughly double in performance every 18 months,
other more "mundane" technologies don't. Some examples:
transferring data to "smart cards" and other embedded devices
with severely limited power, memory and I/O capacity.
Transferring data to mobile devices. It's obviously more
profitable if a carrier can squeeze more information into the same
airtime. It's also better for battery life if airtime is
minimised.
In other words, compactness in data encoding will always be
important in networking.
Lecture 24: Data
Formats and Encoding -- A Philosophy Lecture