Re: [9fans] XML

["Francisco J Ballesteros" <nemo@lsub.org>]

> > Do you remember XML being helpful on any particular occasion? I'm really
> > curious.

In omero, I've found recently a place where using XML to convey the UI tree from
the UI server to the viewer would win (perhaps) wrt using a file tree.
this particular
case is when the link between the omero server and the UI viewer has a
really bad
latency. In this case, the current viewer scans the tree (one level at
a time) to see
changes and update the UI. Even when notified of subtrees that changes, it still
has to read the root of the subtree (one RPC), do the same for inner
panels (another),
and so and so and so.

However, we're still experimenting with this and I think that just
placing a "toc" file
in the root of the tree (with the equivalent of du -a) would permit
the viewer doing its
work in just two RPCs.

Of course, using a real fs instead of xml lets us use all the fs
tools, as you all know,
that's why we don't actually use xml. But since you asked, I have to
say that that's
the only place I've seriously considered using xml (or similar) to
replace a file tree.

Perhaps others have more cases where xml could be helpful.