Re: The case for XML

First, Phillip said so much so well at the start of this thread.  Thank 
you.
There are a few ideas floating around in this and the prior XML thread 
that I think need clearing up:  (I'll save my feelings on the XML issue 
for the next e-mail.)
> [XML] requires an extra protocol adding to the complexity to develop 
> SPF-aware products, and sounds like it might require a switch from 
> UDP/DNS to TCP/HTTP.
Using XML for SPF wouldn't require any new network protocol, nor TCP, 
nor HTTP.  XML is quite agnostic in how it gets from one place to 
another.  Even the dreaded 'external entities' (which no one is likely 
to use in an XML version of SPF) are not tied to HTTP.
> [XML] Uses up at least triple the space
Actually, the AOL record is less than 2x in XML and still under 512 
bytes.  Your basic SPF record encodes in under 3x in XML (73 bytes vs. 
26).
> Nothing else in DNS uses XML
Nor, as has been so fervently argued on this list, does anything else 
in DNS use TXT records in the structured way SPF does.
> [too hard to have] someone delve into XML or work on licensing an XML 
> parser.
No one need do this: If you are writing in C or C++, James Clark's 
eXpat parser is mature, widely used and tested.  It is open source with 
a liberal BSD style license ("do want you want with it, commercial or 
otherwise").  It is only three .c files, and adds less than 150k when 
compiled (this number for PPC).
If you are writing in almost any other language, including Java, Perl, 
Python, PHP, Ruby, Smalltalk, and Javascript, numerous free XML tools 
are available and probably already in your distribution.
        - Mark

Mark Lentczner
http://www.ozonehouse.com/mark/
markl(_at_)glyphic(_dot_)com

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