[jdom-interest] BEA's XMLBeans

[Frank Cohen]

Thanks for the thoughtful comments. Your JiBX project looks interesting  
and I downloaded the demo-.07 library. I'll let you know my thoughts on  
it.

Do you have a test suite you already use to benchmark XML libraries? If  
not, I would be interested in writing one in TestMaker and publishing  
it as a performance kit. I am partners with BEA, IBM, Sun, CapeClear so  
they would likely take a look at it. It might be a good collaboration.

-Frank


On Saturday, March 8, 2003, at 09:51 AM, Dennis Sosnoski wrote:

> I'd compare XMLBeans with both document models and data binding in  
> terms of performance, since it tries to be both. XMLBeans is using the  
> Piccolo parser, which I already use in my own testing of document  
> model and data binding frameworks, so the comparisons vs dom4j and  
> JDOM should be pretty direct. Likewise the comparisons vs JAXB and my  
> own JiBX (http://www.jibx.org) on the data binding side.
>
> Given the architecture I'd expect XMLBeans to be fast for reading and  
> writing documents, but slow when using the data binding features and  
> probably (depending on the internal structure) when making  
> modifications using either interface. The data binding part is what  
> gets compiled from a Schema. AFAIK you don't need to have a Schema in  
> order to use the document model-like features.
>
> As I said before, I think this is an interesting technology. I see it  
> as yet another niche-filler, though, rather than as the be-all and  
> end-all that the engineers appear to have sold to BEA management.
>
>  - Dennis
>
> Frank Cohen wrote:
>
>> Thanks for the thoughtful remarks. BEA did not disclose the terms of   
>> the license agreement they were planning at the conference; However,  
>> a  few of the BEA engineers I talked to expected it to be a liberal   
>> license leading to a JSR. That would be consistent with other moves   
>> they've made liked Java Web Services (JWS.)
>>
>> I asked them about benchmarking the code too and they said to wait   
>> until the real release. So far their focus is on functionality.
>>
>> As I understand XMLBeans it's kind of a schema compiler. XML schema   
>> goes in and Java class ready to handle the XML tree comes out. And  
>> you  can compile at run-time or when you're building your code. That  
>> makes  me think there is a lot they can do to optimize for good  
>> performance.
>>
>> What did you have in mind to benchmark against? For example would you  
>>  test JDOM over Xerces?
>>
>> -Frank
>>
>>
>> On Friday, March 7, 2003, at 09:58 AM, Dennis Sosnoski wrote:
>>
>>> XMLBeans is BEA's Grand Unified Model (aka GUM) for dealing with  
>>> XML.  It's actually a data binding facade over an in-memory parse  
>>> event  stream. This has some interesting features - you can access  
>>> the  document using a data binding-like view through objects  
>>> constructed  from a W3C XML Schema definition, and can also use  
>>> XPath and XQuery  operations to access it as XML.
>>>
>>> The data binding view is likely to be very slow by comparison with   
>>> other approaches, though, since it has to retrieve data out of the   
>>> stream each time an object is (lazy) created, and has to store data   
>>> back into the underlying stream when you modify one of the bound   
>>> objects. If you're only working with a relatively small portion of  
>>> the  document this is still fine, and it'll probably be mainly for  
>>> that  type of application that XMLBeans is useful.
>>>
>>> BEA has declined permission for me to benchmark the code, on the  
>>> basis  that it's beta. I think they realize they've got performance  
>>> problems  and plan to eliminate these by tuning before the  
>>> production release. I  think the problems are architectural.
>>>
>>> They've hinted in the past at open sourcing it in the longer term -   
>>> was there anything said at the developer conference about this?
>>>
>>>  - Dennis
>>>
>>> Frank Cohen wrote:
>>>
>>>> Has anyone had a chance to look at BEA's XMLBeans package? They   
>>>> announced XMLBeans at their developer conference this week. It  
>>>> seems  to me that XMLBeans is another competitor to JDOM, or am I  
>>>> missing  something?
>>>>
>>>> -Frank
>>>>
>>>> --  Frank Cohen, Founder, PushToTest, http://www.PushToTest.com,  
>>>> phone:  408 374 7426
>>>> Come to PushToTest for free open-source test automation solutions   
>>>> that test and monitor
>>>> Web-enabled applications, especially Web Services for scalability  
>>>> and  reliability.
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>
>>>
>> --  
>> Frank Cohen, Founder, PushToTest, http://www.PushToTest.com, phone:  
>> 408  374 7426
>> Come to PushToTest for free open-source test automation solutions  
>> that  test and monitor
>> Web-enabled applications, especially Web Services for scalability and  
>>  reliability.
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> To control your jdom-interest membership:
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>> youraddr at yourhost.com
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
--
Frank Cohen, Founder, PushToTest, http://www.PushToTest.com, phone: 408  
374 7426
Come to PushToTest for free open-source test automation solutions that  
test and monitor
Web-enabled applications, especially Web Services for scalability and  
reliability.