Document Centric XML processing is a notion first introduced in VTD-XML. Before VTD-XML, traditional XML processing models (e.g. DOM, SAX and JAXB etc.) are designed around the notion of objects. The XML text, merely as the serialization of the objects, is relegated to the status of a second-class citizen. You base your applications on DOM nodes, string and various business objects, but rarely on the physical documents. If you have followed my articles on DevX so far, it should quickly become obvious that this object-oriented approach of XML processing makes little sense because of the performance hits from virtually all directions. Not only are object creation and garbage collection inherently memory and CPU inefficient, but your applications incur the cost of re-serialization with even t