"The same way you agree on an XML schema?" Yes. But my point is, there's a lot of people who seem to think just waving the word "s-expression" at the problem

"The same way you agree on an XML schema?" Yes. But my point is, there's a lot of people who seem to think just waving the word "s-expression" at the problem is a solution. If you have to sit down and carefully define the exact standard, the value over XML gets mitigated a lot, because the standard is going to need a lot of stuff in it. It has to at least be as complicated as JSON, and JSON is often not quite enough. You can't just say "why don't we use s-expressions" as if that's an argument on its own. But the reality is JSON ate that space anyhow. There's no room for something that's "like JSON, but not really" anymore.