std.xml should just go

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Thursday 03 February 2011 12:48:45 Tomek Sowiński wrote:
> Jonathan M Davis napisał:
> > I think that at least a couple of people have said that they have the
> > beginnings of a replacement, but I don't believe that anyone has stepped
> > up to say that they'll actually complete and propose a module for
> > inclusion in Phobos.
> 
> Wimps ;-)
> 
> > So, std.xml is still very much up in the air, and Tango has set a very
> > high bar with regards to speed. And while we may not be able to match
> > Tango for speed - especially at first - we'd definitely like to have an
> > xml solution that's close. And that's not necessarily going to be easy -
> > especially since we're inevitably going to want a range-based solution.
> > And while ranges can be quite efficient, it can also be easy to make
> > them inefficient if you're not careful.
> 
> Speaking of Tango, may I look at it? I remember that beef over the first
> datetime and it gives me shivers...

I don't know. I wouldn't. It would just be safer that way. I avoid Tango 
completely, because I don't want even the possibility of being accused of 
copying anything from there. But maybe someone who's more in the know about 
Tango would have something different to say.

Regardless, as I understand it, the main reasons for Tango's speed in parsing 
xml is the fact that D's array slicing lets it avoid doing much in the way of 
copying. And while the new std.xml should be range-based, the slicing benefits 
should still hold (at least with built-in strings) as long as we avoid using 
range-based functions which would copy the data rather than slicing it.

- Jonathan M Davis