When parsing speed matters (was Re: [xml-dev] No XML Binaries? Buy Hardware)

On 23/02/07, Michael Kay <> wrote:

> I was once sent by a previous employer to visit one of the hardware
> acceleration companies, to see if they had anything that we could use. I
> returned empty-handed, because the company in question wasn't prepared to
> give any technical information or performance figures that we could use to
> make an informed decision. The experience made me very sceptical.

It's hard to find real cases where hardware acceleration (or binary
XML) makes sense for application work.  If you're doing anything at
all that's non-trivial (building an in-memory tree, sending
transactions to a database, rendering into PDF, etc.) actual parsing
is going to account for 1% or less (often much less) of total running
time. That means that even if you a silver bullet that speeds up XML
parsing by an order of magnitude, you'll be seeing less than a 1%
speed improvement in your overall app.

On the other hand consider a network carrier or major data centre that
has to inspect, route, or otherwise process XML documents at wire
speed as they fly past.  That *is* a situation where accelerated
parsing of some kind might make a difference.


All the best,


David