Startup speed

[Jonathan Kamens]

On 06/21/2013 10:48 PM, David Carlson wrote:
> I have wondered for a long time now why XML was invented.
XML was invented primarily to be used as an architecture-independent 
data interchange format. It is not the best choice of format for storing 
application-specific data, because it has a great deal of overhead both 
in terms of metadata and in terms of the time required to parse it on 
read or format it on write.

I am not sure why the creators of GnuCash chose to use XML as their data 
storage format. It is probably not a choice I would have made.

Having said that, the right thing to do at this point is probably not to 
worry about swapping in a different format for monolithic storage of the 
data, but rather to worry about rearchitecting the application to allow 
for random access and incremental load/save. That's the long-term goal I 
believe the maintainers of the application currently envision.

   jik