> yes a machine readable data format, but NOT XML and yes, JSON is likely/probably good enough I thought so too, until I realized json is terrible for binary.

> yes a machine readable data format, but NOT XML and yes, JSON is likely/probably good enough I thought so too, until I realized json is terrible for binary. on it's own it can't reproduce the full capabilities of REST ie: http multi-part uploads. You need a performant streamable binary format too, and my vote for that is protobuf.