4 ms·

SVG is XML, which I'd say counts as text.

duckerude 6y ago
I don't think it counts for the purposes of this blog post. You can't translate the Wikipedia quote in the article into an SVG except by just rendering the bare text. Checking programmatically that text is about "bird" or "Twitter" is very easy. Checking that an SVG is about "bird" or "Twitter" is very hard. It's not even efficient. It conveys the same message as the word "Twitter" in a hundred times the size. And it wouldn't be less efficient if it were a binary format. It's maybe more suitable for carving into granite than a binary format, but you'd be better off carving the logo itself.
- DarkWiiPlayer 6y ago
  > Checking programmatically that text is about "bird" or "Twitter" is very easy. Checking that an SVG is about "bird" or "Twitter" is very hard. That depends on what you want: If you know what twitter is, then yes, just saying "twitter" is more efficient than a whole SVG file describing the twitter logo. But if you don't know what twitter is, nor what its logo looks like, SVG is a very efficient way to describe the logo exactly. If you can have it rendered to your screen that's optimal, but if not, you can take it as instructions to redraw the logo yourself and still get an accurate impression of what the twitter logo looks like. I that sense, "twitter" and the SVG of the twitter logo are both text, but they don't have the same meaning. As for the granite, it is indeed one situation where just drawing the plain SVG logo is more effective, but SVG would still be viable. Over telephone, on the other hand, you just can't transmit an image. You can only attempt to describe it, and the more detailed you get with that, the closer you come to just using a code very similar to SVG.
JoyrexJ9 6y ago
How far do you take that line of reasoning? Base64 is text?
- imhoguy 6y ago
  00101010010100110101001... is text too, but I agree SVG is just machine description, human sees the rendered result in that context.
deleted 6y ago
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whateveracct 6y ago
it's not consumed as text

I don't think it counts for the purposes of this blog post. You can't translate the Wikipedia quote in the article into an SVG except by just rendering the bare text. Checking programmatically that text is about "bird" or "Twitter" is very easy. Checking that an SVG is about "bird" or "Twitter" is very hard. It's not even efficient. It conveys the same message as the word "Twitter" in a hundred times the size. And it wouldn't be less efficient if it were a binary format. It's maybe more suitable for carving into granite than a binary format, but you'd be better off carving the logo itself.

DarkWiiPlayer 6y ago
> Checking programmatically that text is about "bird" or "Twitter" is very easy. Checking that an SVG is about "bird" or "Twitter" is very hard. That depends on what you want: If you know what twitter is, then yes, just saying "twitter" is more efficient than a whole SVG file describing the twitter logo. But if you don't know what twitter is, nor what its logo looks like, SVG is a very efficient way to describe the logo exactly. If you can have it rendered to your screen that's optimal, but if not, you can take it as instructions to redraw the logo yourself and still get an accurate impression of what the twitter logo looks like. I that sense, "twitter" and the SVG of the twitter logo are both text, but they don't have the same meaning. As for the granite, it is indeed one situation where just drawing the plain SVG logo is more effective, but SVG would still be viable. Over telephone, on the other hand, you just can't transmit an image. You can only attempt to describe it, and the more detailed you get with that, the closer you come to just using a code very similar to SVG.

JoyrexJ9 6y ago

How far do you take that line of reasoning? Base64 is text?

imhoguy 6y ago
00101010010100110101001... is text too, but I agree SVG is just machine description, human sees the rendered result in that context.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

whateveracct 6y ago

it's not consumed as text