December 11, 2004

Further comments regarding hardware acceleration

In a recent comment to my most recent post Bryan from Itnisk pointed out the following post from xml-dev:

http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/200209/msg00282.html

Notice the date: Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2002 07:05:07 -0700 - This post is now 2 years old.

Are the "times they are a changing" and people are beginning to see things from a slightly different perspective now that binaryXML is threatening that in which they have spent so much time and energy building? Or was it that 2 years ago people didn't recognize that a major problem with network capacity was looming and as such simply didn't see the point in accelerating something that at the time seemed fine the way it was?

I have no idea what the answer to this question is. In my world I'm not dealing with networks that are overburdened with XML data. In fact to me it seems that XML has solved more bandwidth issues than its created. But my world is obviously different than the world others are faced with as its obvious this is a serious problem for those who are dealing with networks that were not designed for the capacity that they are currently dealing with. Thats not to say that if Sarvega or DataPower suddenly decided they wanted XSLTBlog to be running on top of their hardware that I would say no (was that obvious enough or should I just flat out say it.... I WANT ONE!!!!!!!!! or TWO!!!!!!! ;) :) :D ) Faster is always better.... err, wait.... ummmm.... well, anyway, I want one no matter if it is or if it isn't ;)

But whether my Christmas stocking comes stuffed with hardware acceleration or not the question still remains... What is the problem and is hardware acceleration the solution? If not two years ago, why now? Is "xoptimize" the word of the year for 2005 (How cool would it be to say that you coined the "word of the year" for 2005 -- Wait! Before you come and try and tell me I wasn't the first one to use the word just let me live in my fantasy world for just one more day, k?! ;) :D )

Thoughts, comments, questions, answers?