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> XML is a ridiculously complex document format designed for editing text documents. It is not a suitable data interchange format. Fortunately we have JSON now.

• gioele 12y ago
  > But XML is not ridiculously complicated. The 1.0 specification http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/ http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/ is not very long. Also note that the XML 1.0 specification contains the specification of the data format and of a schema language for the format itself (DTD). Without the definition of DTD, XML could be much much simpler. I second Norman Walsh's proposal for XML 2.0: Just drop the <!DOCTYPE> declaration [1]. XML is pretty good as it is for its intended scope (marking up text), dropping the DOCTYPE/DTD would remove the main source of complexity and insecurity. [1] http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2005/12/15/Drop-the-Doctype http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2005/12/15/Drop-the-D...
• haberman 12y ago
  > XML also gives us SVG, which is lovely. That implies that SVG needed XML. SVG just needed a structured data format. It could just as easily have used JSON or Protocol Buffers and it would still be SVG. > XML is easy to parse More like it seems easy to parse. Plenty of people think they are parsing XML but their ad hoc "parsers" know nothing about CDATA, DTDs, external entities, processing instructions, or comments. > easy to edit ...except for gotchas like the fact that you need to entity-escape any ampersands in attributes (like "href"). > and easy to emit Harder than it sounds. A single error renders the whole document invalid, and when you're compositing information from different data sources, it's easy to make mistakes: https://web.archive.org/web/20080701064734/http://diveintomark.org/archives/2004/01/14/thought_experiment https://web.archive.org/web/20080701064734/http://diveintoma... > The 1.0 specification http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/ http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/ is not very long. Sure, but combined with the other specs which are assumed to be part of a modern XML stack (namespaces at least, and often XML schema, XSLT, etc), you have grown a pretty complicated mess that isn't a great match for what it's often used for.
  • dietrichepp 12y ago
    > It could just as easily have used JSON or Protocol Buffers and it would still be SVG. Definitely not protocol buffers. XML gives us some really nice bits of SVG, like the ability to put attributes and tags in namespaces, so you can use Inkscape to edit your SVG file, store a bunch of Inkscape-specific data in the SVG file, and not have other editors puke. SVG isn't just data interchange, it's a document edited by humans. JSON doesn't accommodate that very well. > More like it seems easy to parse. Plenty of people think they are parsing XML but their ad hoc "parsers" know nothing about CDATA, DTDs, external entities, processing instructions, or comments. I wouldn't use an ad-hoc parser for JSON either. The problem here isn't XML, the problem is thinking that you can solve your problem with regular expressions. Ignoring or throwing errors for DTDs, external entities, and PIs is reasonable behavior most of the time, and most parsers can be set to strip comments and erase the differences between entities/CDATA/text. This behavior is good enough for 99% of the use cases. > ...except for gotchas like the fact that you need to entity-escape any ampersands in attributes (like "href"). Escape sequences in XML are better than JSON, at least. Try escaping a character from the astral plane in JSON, you have to encode it in UTF-16 and then encode each item in the surrogate pair as a separate escape sequence. This is insane. (Yes, sometimes you want to transmit JSON or XML in 7-bit). Escape sequences are a natural part of any text format, other than plain text. > Sure, but combined with the other specs which are assumed to be part of a modern XML stack Most of the modern XML stack is a mistake, a symptom of the years when people thought XML was the coolest thing ever. XSLT is the worst mistake of all. That doesn't mean that you have to use it. Most people don't. Let's not fall into the trap of thinking that we should use JSON for everything, just like so many fell into the trap of thinking that they should use XML for everything. Both have their use cases.
    • cbsmith 12y ago
      > Definitely not protocol buffers. I fail to see why protocol buffers couldn't have worked for SVG. They are expressly defined so that you can have extensible types without breaking parsers... > I wouldn't use an ad-hoc parser for JSON either. The problem here isn't XML ...but you can find plenty of "parsers" for both that don't actually parse either fully, correctly, or securely. > Try escaping a character from the astral plane in JSON, you have to encode it in UTF-16 and then encode each item in the surrogate pair as a separate escape sequence. One of many reasons to be annoyed by those who think JSON is a perfectly good data format. > Escape sequences are a natural part of any text format, other than plain text. Another reason to loathe them. ;-) That said, you can avoid escape sequences in text formats, so long as your parse rules are length delimited, rather than based on reserved characters. > Most of the modern XML stack is a mistake, a symptom of the years when people thought XML was the coolest thing ever. XSLT is the worst mistake of all. That doesn't mean that you have to use it. Most people don't. Agreed, but generally if you aren't supporting it, you aren't using XML. > Let's not fall into the trap of thinking that we should use JSON for everything, just like so many fell into the trap of thinking that they should use XML for everything. Both have their use cases. Yes, though I'd argue they are primarily for causing problems.