Re[2]: MIME vs pure XML ebXML structure

["Mark CRAWFORD"<mcrawfor@lmi.org>]

Greetings,

If I am going to elicit ebXML support from my client base, then I need to know
that the solution meets all of my clients needs.  That has been the basis of my
concern regarding Mime and the posibility that it was going to be "the" ebXML
solution.  

It appears to me that one of the things missing in the mime vs. XML debate is
what are the XML server developers and XML business standards bodies doing.  At
the Orlando meeting, Rik indicated the transport group was going to look at
different enveloping solutions, including RosettaNet and BizTalk.  Did that
happen?  If so, what were the results? (yes I know RosettaNet uses Mime and
BizTalk supports Mime for binary data, but does that mean we adopt Mime as "the"
solution?).  By the same token, are there representatives in the transport group
from such companies as - webMethods, Bluestone, Microsoft, Sun, IBM and others
involved in developing industrial strength XML servers?  (I talked to an
engineer at webMethods the other day - they support both but can't really see a
need for Mime except for binary data). What about the low-end servers that the
SME's may buy into?   If such contacts have been made,  what do they say about
providing both XML and Mime solutions?  If not, what has the transport group
done to canvas those folks regarding their proposed solution?  


    Mark
Mark Crawford
Research Fellow
______
LMI Logistics Management Institute
2000 Corporate Ridge, McLean, VA 22102-7805
(703) 917-7177   Fax (703) 917-7518
mcrawfor@lmi.org
http://www.lmi.org
"Opportunity is what you make of it"



____________________Reply Separator____________________
Subject:    Re: MIME vs pure XML ebXML structure 
Author: "Kit (Christopher) Lueder" <kit@mitre.org>
Date:       3/9/00 3:23 PM

Hi,
Someone on the list asked me the benefits of the two approaches. I
figured I would answer to the whole list. Here is a quick stab at it.
Any other points I left off?
Kit.

Benefits of MIME envelope:
 - If you are using e-mail, it falls out automatically.
 - If you want to parse the header but don't want to parse the body
(content), XML parsers aren't able to arbitrarily stop in the middle of
a document. (e.g., if you have an ebXML envelope around a huge document
content and don't want the overhead of parsing the whole thing.) MIME
allows the header to be a separate attachment from the body, so they can
be parsed separately.
 - If you have an XML parsing error anywhere in the document, the parser
fails. Thus an error in the content will kill parsing of the envelope,
if it is all XML.

Benefits of pure XML solution (no MIME envelope):
 - It is a pure XML solution, which meets the possible "ebXML
requirement" of our solution being W3C-compliant.
 - You don't have to do special processing to strip the MIME envelope
before feeding the XML stuff to the XML parser.
 - If you have a web server and a user fills out and submits a web form,
I suspect it is easier for the server back end to generate pure XML,
rather than having to generate a MIME envelope as well.

So I don't lean one way strongly over the other way. Both sides have
their benefits.
Kit.

> Hey Kit,
>         Can you explain what some of the perceived benifits to using
> MIME (say .vs. something like the all xml example you layed out)?

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