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I've never understood why XML gets so much hate outside of the context of the browser. Yes, it's verbose but fully featured parsers are everywhere and it seems

I've never understood why XML gets so much hate outside of the context of the browser. Yes, it's verbose but fully featured parsers are everywhere and it seems far easier to include a random (base-64'd) binary blob in place if required as opposed to JSON. This is an area I know little about -- I'd love someone more knowledgeable to educate me.

IanCal 5y ago
I think it's partly down to being exceptionally verbose for simple tasks. Dealing with extra empty text nodes, namespacing, etc. JSON for most simple use cases is just "dump kv, load kv". I'm not sure I understand the issue with base64 in JSON? Have I misunderstood the point there?
- Sebb767 5y ago
  Additionally, XML, with its nesting and attributes, doesn't map particularly well to a specific programming construct. Also, you can represent an object in a lot of ways. JSON, on the other hand, is dead simple: You have your list/array, dict/object and four value types. Representing JSON in your favorite language is straight-foward and how the serialized version of a hierarchy looks is immediately obvious in nearly all cases.
  - progval 5y ago
    Depends on the language. XML maps nicely to C/C++/Java/Rust/... structures, that you can generate from a schema at compile time. Dealing with arbitrarily typed arrays and objects is painful in some languages because you need to use variants and dynamic-cast every access to the document.
    - floatboth 5y ago
      How is it "nice" when any struct member could map to either an attribute or a child element? XML is a markup language. It's in the name even. Trying to use it for serialization is weird.
      - progval 5y ago
        You declare which one it should be in the schema (used to generate the struct and its (de)serialization code) > XML is a markup language. It's in the name even. It can be used for markup, but isn't limited to that.
        Sebb767 5y ago
        That's exactly the problem I was going for - feature richness is the enemy of simplicity. The fact that you need to read a schema (and learn one of the schema languages) makes starting out with XML just much harder than JSON.
        progval 5y ago
        You implicitly need a schema in JSON too: it's the API documentation. Then, every implementer in a statically typed language needs to translate the JSON format into structures in their own language. And this is impossible to automate, unless the JSON API uses a formally defined schema (eg. OpenAPI or GraphQL schemas), but then we're back to square 1. If you don't care about that (eg. in dynamically typed languages), you can parse XML just like you parse JSON, using something like https://github.com/martinblech/xmltodict https://github.com/martinblech/xmltodict

IanCal 5y ago

I think it's partly down to being exceptionally verbose for simple tasks. Dealing with extra empty text nodes, namespacing, etc. JSON for most simple use cases is just "dump kv, load kv". I'm not sure I understand the issue with base64 in JSON? Have I misunderstood the point there?

Sebb767 5y ago
Additionally, XML, with its nesting and attributes, doesn't map particularly well to a specific programming construct. Also, you can represent an object in a lot of ways. JSON, on the other hand, is dead simple: You have your list/array, dict/object and four value types. Representing JSON in your favorite language is straight-foward and how the serialized version of a hierarchy looks is immediately obvious in nearly all cases.
- progval 5y ago
  Depends on the language. XML maps nicely to C/C++/Java/Rust/... structures, that you can generate from a schema at compile time. Dealing with arbitrarily typed arrays and objects is painful in some languages because you need to use variants and dynamic-cast every access to the document.
  - floatboth 5y ago
    How is it "nice" when any struct member could map to either an attribute or a child element? XML is a markup language. It's in the name even. Trying to use it for serialization is weird.
    - progval 5y ago
      You declare which one it should be in the schema (used to generate the struct and its (de)serialization code) > XML is a markup language. It's in the name even. It can be used for markup, but isn't limited to that.
      - Sebb767 5y ago
        That's exactly the problem I was going for - feature richness is the enemy of simplicity. The fact that you need to read a schema (and learn one of the schema languages) makes starting out with XML just much harder than JSON.
        progval 5y ago
        You implicitly need a schema in JSON too: it's the API documentation. Then, every implementer in a statically typed language needs to translate the JSON format into structures in their own language. And this is impossible to automate, unless the JSON API uses a formally defined schema (eg. OpenAPI or GraphQL schemas), but then we're back to square 1. If you don't care about that (eg. in dynamically typed languages), you can parse XML just like you parse JSON, using something like https://github.com/martinblech/xmltodict https://github.com/martinblech/xmltodict