Adobe's Action Message Format is a higher-performance alternative to XML, Curl says Curl, maker of the Curl Rich Internet Application Platform for Internet development, on Tuesday is releasing Curl Data Kit Data Services, providing an alternative to cumbersome XML-based data access for Curl applications.Instead of XML, Curl’s data services library leverages Adobe AMF (Action Message Format), a binary protocol for exchanging data between an RIA client and server platforms, Curl said.[ Related: Adobe opened up access to AMF last year. ] “Today, most access to databases is through XML,” which is verbose and slow, said Richard Treadway, vice president of marketing and product strategy at Curl. Using AMF provides higher performance, he said.The initial release of the of the library implements remoting and Web messaging services supported by the open-source BlazeDS server, including publish/subscribe, RPC, and security and authorization capabilities. Communication with the server is asynchronous, which is an important option for usability and keeps the user interface active while waiting for a response from the server, Curl said.Curl features a language and runtime environment that installs on the client. By running native on the client as opposed to being in an interpretive fashion, Curl applications offer performance advantages, Treadway said. The free library can be accessed at this Web page.Curl said the data services library continues Curl’s initiative to provide libraries for data-centric applications. The CDK library released in July 2008 offered support for local SQL databases, for storage and retrieval of data using the SQLite engine. Software Development