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Agreed. I like JSON and I think it's the better choice for serialization and data exchange in many cases where XML is used today, but pretending it's the magic
by w0utert 14y ago
Agreed. I like JSON and I think it's the better choice for serialization and data exchange in many cases where XML is used today, but pretending it's the magic alternative to anything you could also do with XML is crazy, and it only shows a very limited understanding of what XML actually is.
Transformations, schema checking, xpath queries, well defined linking and embedding, a host of tools that support applications of XML on every platform, the list goes on and on. JSON has none of this, it's basically exactly what its name says it is ('JavaScript object notation') and not much more. It covers maybe 10% of what XML and all its related tools and standards are. The current trend seems to be that XML is 'old technology' and all the cool kids use JSON, and it bugs me. You can't possibly sincerely say JSON is 'just like XML but less verbose' unless you simply don't really know much about XML at all.
- DougWebb 14y agoYAML, which is a superset of JSON, adds the potential to be just like XML but less verbose. It never went through the same kind of hype though, so the tooling is not nearly as pervasive.
- ams6110 14y agoI must be one of the few who thought that XSL was a great way to build visual interfaces to data, in browsers that support XSLT (this was an area where IE had an very early advantage over other browsers, not sure what the state of things is today). Sorting, filtering, drilling down... all trivially easy and declarative with XSLT, once you groked xpath. Yeah it was verbose, but otherwise great. There are some similar approaches for JSON data now, I think... but none are standards-based AFAIK, meaning they are mostly single-vendor or project solutions.