>This is interesting. It seems that XML messaging is the beginning of a type of hybrid data protocol.
>

Yeah, sort of. The cool thing is, XML can carry anything, because the language itslef defines the contents. There are several schemas in the works that will soon be vying for the standard xml "data" protocol. IOW, someday, we will have a standard way to represent table data in XML, instead of guessing at which schema will work best, or trying to cobble our own together. (I have just been using the standard that Rick adopted with his wwXML class- so far it has covered all the bases, once he got the kinks worked out).


>The overhead is a function of the amount of data being created and parsed and is a design issue for the developer.

>I'm just wondering about XML's long term viability with respect to increased bandwidth capacities in the future. Will it lose it's appeal?

I don't think that the bandwidth concern will ever be more of an issue than it is right now. And it is not much of an issue now. Distributed systems just do not really need to pass large amounts of data back and forth- if they are, it is not really in a messaging context, and much more efficient formats would be in line.

I agree though, about the parsing difficulties. Currently, the only free COM based parser available is Microsoft's, and you have to have IE 4.01 SP1 for it to even work. In several years, we'll be able to take the presence of an XML parser for granted, and we as developers won't have to worry as much about it. This concern has been a major one for me, and has already been a showstopper once.

As far as overhead with XML creation- bah. Every major website is generating html on the fly already, and in manageable time, why would xml be more of a concern?
Overhead with XML parsing- it's still a bit of a performance problem. But remember we are also still dealing with a bunch of first gen parsers. The parser builders will get their sh*t together soon enough, or hardware will get fast enough for it not to matter, and this will no longer be a concern.