RE: XML was RE: [GD-General] RE: A portable preferences library

[Gareth L. <GL...@cl...>]

Sorry, but you are just wrong.

> >Lets not ignore the fact that loading bits of the level is 
> way easier with a
> >binary specific format that can be dumped directly into data 
> structures.
> >  
> >
> Yes but that's not portable. CS has to run on all kinds of operating 
> systems and cpu's. We can't
> dump binary structures like that. The endianess wouldn't be 
> correct and 
> padding can differ
> too.
> 

There is no reason whatsoever for final proccessed data to be portable. You
have your data in xml. You preprocess it into binary format for a specific
build/platform. And you use that. Your load times go from 16seconds to 2 or
3 seconds.

And the amount of effort required to implement binary saving off of
structures isn't anywhere near comparable with the effort required to tweak
the speed of a graphics engine. Not to mention that 16-20 second load times
would have me returning the game to the shop.