[Biodevelopers] Another point of discussion: XML

[Joe Landman]

In his talk at the O'Reilly conference in Jan 2002, Ewan Birney
indicated he had mixed feelings about using XML for informatics
applications.  His point as I remember it, was that it "encouraged
bloat". 

XML is a verbose language.  There is no doubt about that.  I do believe
it is a useful technology for data exchange, with the caveat that you
need to think carefully about how you are going to use it.

Specifically, if you are going to exchange many records of a database,
it might make sense not to force everything into XML for transfer, but
to use XML to describe the structure of the BLOB you transfer over, so
the remote system can understand it.  Basically use XML not to
encapsulate the data for transfer (which is what I think Ewan was
talking about), but as a descriptive block which need only be sent once,
and the data can be piped over raw.

I was hoping that others who are looking at or using XML (or similar
technologies) might chime up in how they are using it, or thinking about
it.  

I am using XML for my program config files.  I am using XML for passing
state information between services on my system.  The nice thing about
this is that I can add/change the way the thing works by adding to or
changing the document, without rewriting the interface that generates or
parses the document.  Of course, as I am using SOAP, I am using XML
implicitly for the structure of my object transport layer.

How are you/arent you using this or related technologies?