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Why do our machine data formats (JSON, XML, etc) need to be more human friendly? I don't build business processes that involve a human reading and manipulating

Why do our machine data formats (JSON, XML, etc) need to be more human friendly? I don't build business processes that involve a human reading and manipulating JSON or XML. I don't choose a data format for readability. In fact I think that's one of the least important factors. I choose JSON when the producer or consumer is JavaScript code. That's pretty much the only reason, I think, to pick JSON over XML or anything else. Also, both JSON and XML are terrible for config file intended to be manually edited.

captainmuon 12y ago
> Why do our machine data formats (JSON, XML, etc) need to be more human friendly? I don't build business processes that involve a human reading and manipulating JSON or XML. I do. JSON is a great format for config files. For example, Sublime Text's config files are in JSON. You configure the editor by editing those files. I think they additionally support comments, but if you edit something in the GUI you loose them. The round-trip-safeness of this seems like a really good addition for this use case (e.g. you change a value programmatically, and only that place in the file changes - all comments and whitespace stay where they are). I currently use a lot of Python and some XML as "glue" code, and to configure other programs. Definitions for plots, settings for batch jobs, and so on. XML is overkill, and hard to parse. Python scripts are limited to python, and you have a full interpreter, so people can put logic in your config files, which is usually not what you want. YAML is too non-standard and has too many varieties and edge cases. JSON is really great for this case - even better, leninent JSON+comments. And accidentially, JSON is not only Javascript, but almost valid Python, and a couple of other languages. I think the sweet spot is hit by JSON5, which is JSON extended with some ECMAScript5 features, and additional comments. I agree of course that plain JSON is the best when you write webservices, or consume or produce with JavaScript. I wouldn't use any non-standard thing on the wire. But if you just want to set a few variables from outside in your program, its great to be able to put a JavaScript/Python/PHP object literal in a file with a few comments, and it just works.

captainmuon 12y ago

> Why do our machine data formats (JSON, XML, etc) need to be more human friendly? I don't build business processes that involve a human reading and manipulating JSON or XML. I do. JSON is a great format for config files. For example, Sublime Text's config files are in JSON. You configure the editor by editing those files. I think they additionally support comments, but if you edit something in the GUI you loose them. The round-trip-safeness of this seems like a really good addition for this use case (e.g. you change a value programmatically, and only that place in the file changes - all comments and whitespace stay where they are). I currently use a lot of Python and some XML as "glue" code, and to configure other programs. Definitions for plots, settings for batch jobs, and so on. XML is overkill, and hard to parse. Python scripts are limited to python, and you have a full interpreter, so people can put logic in your config files, which is usually not what you want. YAML is too non-standard and has too many varieties and edge cases. JSON is really great for this case - even better, leninent JSON+comments. And accidentially, JSON is not only Javascript, but almost valid Python, and a couple of other languages. I think the sweet spot is hit by JSON5, which is JSON extended with some ECMAScript5 features, and additional comments. I agree of course that plain JSON is the best when you write webservices, or consume or produce with JavaScript. I wouldn't use any non-standard thing on the wire. But if you just want to set a few variables from outside in your program, its great to be able to put a JavaScript/Python/PHP object literal in a file with a few comments, and it just works.