I've posted it in another subthread already, but XML, with its nesting and attributes, doesn't map particularly well to a specific programming construct. Also,

I've posted it in another subthread already, but XML, with its nesting and attributes, doesn't map particularly well to a specific programming construct. Also, you can represent an object hierarchy in a lot of ways and it's very verbose for even the smallest stuff. 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.