Re: LANG: VRML 1.x Binary Format Proposal
Brian Behlendorf ([email protected])
Wed, 31 May 1995 19:34:47 -0700 (PDT)
On Wed, 31 May 1995, Mitra wrote:
> At 6:55 PM 5/31/95, Mark Waks wrote:
> >Mitra points out that, for small files, there may be drawbacks to
> >compression. This may well be true (wouldn't even be surprising), but
> >is it important? I don't *think* we're talking about replacing the
> >existing format, just adding alternatives. Am I incorrect? Is anyone
> >actually proposing that we we move to *only* a binary format? Or, for
> >that matter, *requiring* compression?
>
> No - what I'm trying to point out is that the case of lots of small files
> may hurt our bandwidth as much as the big files, in which case a binary
> format would be pretty easy to handle whereas launching gzip costs time and
> for really small files doesnt gain us much.
Unless the browsers could understand gzip "natively", essentially as
just another encoding. Then there's no fire-up-the-decompressor
overhead. The algorithms are public domain and I understand they're
pretty straightforward.
What no one has talked about on the list yet is whether a binary file
format could provide a benefit other than compression - parsing speed.
Compiled C programs are very rarely smaller than their source, yet no one
disputes than an object code interpreter is faster than a source code
interpreter :) Does anyone think there might be a gain that could be
made in this area from a binary format?
Brian
--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--
[email protected] [email protected] http://www.[hyperreal,organic].com/