> Do you remember XML being helpful on any particular occasion? I'm really > curious.
In omero, I've found recently a place where using XML to convey the UI tree from the UI server to the viewer would win (perhaps) wrt using a file tree. this particular case is when the link between the omero server and the UI viewer has a really bad latency. In this case, the current viewer scans the tree (one level at a time) to see changes and update the UI. Even when notified of subtrees that changes, it still has to read the root of the subtree (one RPC), do the same for inner panels (another), and so and so and so. However, we're still experimenting with this and I think that just placing a "toc" file in the root of the tree (with the equivalent of du -a) would permit the viewer doing its work in just two RPCs. Of course, using a real fs instead of xml lets us use all the fs tools, as you all know, that's why we don't actually use xml. But since you asked, I have to say that that's the only place I've seriously considered using xml (or similar) to replace a file tree. Perhaps others have more cases where xml could be helpful.
