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XML was abandoned because we realized bandwidth costs money and while it was too late to do anything about how verbose HTML is, we didn't have to repeat the mis

XML was abandoned because we realized bandwidth costs money and while it was too late to do anything about how verbose HTML is, we didn't have to repeat the mistake with our data transfer protocols. Even with zipped payloads, it's just way unnecessarily chatty without being more readable.

_heimdall 9mo ago
That doesn't match my memory, though its been a while now! I remember the arguments largely revolving around verbosity and the prevalence of JSON use in browsers. That doesn't mean bandwidth wasn't a consideration, but I mostly remember hearing devs complain about how verbose or difficult to work with XML was.
- johngossman 9mo ago
  Your memory is correct. Once compression was applied, the size on the wire was mostly a wash. Parsing costs were often greater but that's at the endpoints.
  - shadowgovt 9mo ago
    But one of those endpoints is a client on a mobile phone, which when we started with Internet on mobile devices wasn't a particularly powerful CPU architecture.
voidfunc 9mo ago
OK, but XML is a pretty solid format for a lot of other stuff that doesn't necessarily need network transmission.
- shadowgovt 9mo ago
  This is true, but if other formats work for those purposes and also network transmission, they'll start to edge out the alternative of supporting two different protocols in your stack.
cosmotic 9mo ago
The article addresses this.
howdyhowdyhowdy 9mo ago
if bandwidth was a concern, JSON was a poor solution. XML compresses nicely and efficiently. Yes it can be verbose to the human eyes, but I don't know if bandwidth is the reason it's not used more often.
- adgjlsfhk1 9mo ago
  JSON absolutely isn't perfect, but it's a spec that you can explain in ~5 minutes, mirrors common PL syntax for Dict/Array, and is pretty much superior to XML in every way.
  - howdyhowdyhowdy 9mo ago
    Sure, but the argument is bandwidth which is what I’m comparing them to solutions to each other against.
deleted 9mo ago
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_heimdall 9mo ago

That doesn't match my memory, though its been a while now! I remember the arguments largely revolving around verbosity and the prevalence of JSON use in browsers. That doesn't mean bandwidth wasn't a consideration, but I mostly remember hearing devs complain about how verbose or difficult to work with XML was.

johngossman 9mo ago
Your memory is correct. Once compression was applied, the size on the wire was mostly a wash. Parsing costs were often greater but that's at the endpoints.
- shadowgovt 9mo ago
  But one of those endpoints is a client on a mobile phone, which when we started with Internet on mobile devices wasn't a particularly powerful CPU architecture.

voidfunc 9mo ago

OK, but XML is a pretty solid format for a lot of other stuff that doesn't necessarily need network transmission.

shadowgovt 9mo ago
This is true, but if other formats work for those purposes and also network transmission, they'll start to edge out the alternative of supporting two different protocols in your stack.

cosmotic 9mo ago

The article addresses this.

howdyhowdyhowdy 9mo ago

if bandwidth was a concern, JSON was a poor solution. XML compresses nicely and efficiently. Yes it can be verbose to the human eyes, but I don't know if bandwidth is the reason it's not used more often.

adgjlsfhk1 9mo ago
JSON absolutely isn't perfect, but it's a spec that you can explain in ~5 minutes, mirrors common PL syntax for Dict/Array, and is pretty much superior to XML in every way.
- howdyhowdyhowdy 9mo ago
  Sure, but the argument is bandwidth which is what I’m comparing them to solutions to each other against.

deleted 9mo ago

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