[Standards] Binary data over XMPP

[Fabio Forno]

On Nov 9, 2007 7:37 PM, Rachel Blackman <rcb at ceruleanstudios.com> wrote:

> Facetious comments aside, my point is that if we're talking about
> modifying how the XMPP parser works, why bother doing things halfway
> with little workarounds?  Throw out XMPP 1.0 entirely and come up with
> an extensible 2.0 binary protocol.
> If we like to chant the 'XMPP is not really XML' mantra and the 'we
> must shave off every byte we can to spare the poor mobile users'
> mantras, that's great.  But considering we only have 3 actual main
> stanza types, a purely binary (and not necessarily XML-related)
> protocol would be more efficient.

That's exactly my point: XMPP 1.0 is good for desktop clients, and at
present for a series of reasons I've already talked about I prefer
BOSH for mobiles, but an extensible binary xml protocol would be the
best of both worlds.

> I think we've lost sight of whatever the original problem we were
> trying to solve was (inline images?  Size of binary blobs to mobiles?)
> and have become caught up in hypothetical solutions which may no
> longer be directly connected to the issue.  :)

One more good reason for using BOSH with mobiles: you can fix very
quickly the binary data issue offering the decoded, more compact, data
on the same channel, accessing it using a different path in the
request. The change would be almost trivial, leaving the time for a
decent binary XMPP 2.0

-- 
Fabio Forno, PhD
Istituto Superiore Mario Boella
Jabber ID: xmpp:ff at jabber.bluendo.com
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