Henry writes:
> ....but I was saying that history has shown that using binary encoding
> formats like that makes debugging a nightmare (i.e., EDI).
My turn on the game-show buzzer: EDI formats were not binary.
(I say this as someone whose fingers actually touched a 5-1/4"
floppy containing the ANSI X12 spec. Yeah, like you care....).
Cryptic (maybe) and stupid in places (definitely), but not binary.
There is some vague keitai relevance here, since ANSI X12's
terseness was in part a response to slow transmission speeds
and limited memory. Most EDI formats (X12, EDIFACT, etc.)
were designed with 2400 baud modems and 64K microcomputers
in mind, and economizing on bandwidth and memory is still clearly
a priority for wireless telephony. Especially now that it looks like
we'll be using 2G and 2.5G for a while yet.
Personally, I don't expect to be doing hundreds of B2B transactions
a day through my phone. The relevance of EDI for consumers is
pretty questionable. For corporate apps that might see this
level of frenetic activity from field staff, however, using EDI
transaction formats would actually make some sense compared
to using XML.
In fact, come to think of it, I used something very much like EDI
transaction formats, for a wireless mobile app, over ten years ago:
delivery truck paperwork automation, using in-cab terminals and
1200 baud digital radio links (on an early car navigation unit we
hacked for industrial uses.) We considered binary formats, for
that extra increment of speed, but rejected them finally, for the
ease of debugging.
By the way, the in-cab terminal's display was vector-scan, painting all
characters in e-beam strokes. So I can even close here by touching
on something vaguely relevant to the original subject: yeah, SVG may
be a pig, but vector graphics itself doesn't have to be - it still beats
bitmaps for some purposes.
-m
leap@gol.com
[ Did you check the archives? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/ ]
Received on Tue Jun 12 07:05:18 2001