4 ms·

Is that a bad thing? For cases where the document is at least partially written by hand it makes sense to replace XML with something more friendly, such as JSON

by zoul 9y ago

Is that a bad thing? For cases where the document is at least partially written by hand it makes sense to replace XML with something more friendly, such as JSON or YAML.

foepys 9y ago
Wasn't the basic idea of JSON to be small and unstructured to be sent between applications? Shoehorning everything into JSON that is already solved by XML seems illogical, as GP already said. It reeks of NIH. People shouldn't use JSON for anything hand-written. YAML or even the older INI format are way better suited for configuration files for one reason alone: they allow comments.
- nine_k 9y ago
  Small, or smaller than XML, yes. Unstructured — why?
- avmich 9y ago
  To me, JSON can be viewed as slightly enhanced S-expressions, enhanced in a particular way. It would sound strange hearing "shoehorning everything into S-expressions in Lisp that is already solved by structural Fortran syntax seems illogical". NIH claim is probably valid when there are no noticeable difference. In my opinion, XML differs a lot from JSON, particularly when one need to write snippets by hand. JSON also seems more logical/laconic (once upon a time M-expressions were supposed to come to stage, but S-expressions turned up to be good enough).