8 ms·

“JSONx is an IBM standard format to represent JSON as XML”

35 points by anacleto 12y ago

m0llusk 12y ago
Just keep moving. Don't make eye contact.
DiabloD3 12y ago
I want to know the use case that required this
- gaius 12y ago
  It's in the comments below "JSONx is a workaround in older DB2 versions to process JSON through the XML system."
  - krylon 12y ago
    At least that is a reasonable, sane explanation. Otherwise, the idea of encoding data in JSON and then transforming that to XML seems a little ... convoluted.
    - gaius 12y ago
      It's particularly relevant on IBM as they have hardware-accelerated XML processing http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/hardware/features/zaap/ http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/hardware/features/zaap/
      - krylon 12y ago
        Man, I would so love to have a mainframe. Maybe, one day... UPDATE: I think I am getting the picture. This is about interfacing legacy systems to new ones. In that context, it makes perfect sense.
      - mrsteveman1 12y ago
        From what I read about zAAP and zIIP, they're not actually hardware accelerators like a DSP or a purpose built processor, rather they're a way to reduce the cost of running specific workloads on a mainframe, and IBM markets them that way[1]. The zIIPs themselves seem to be standard z processing units that have been loaded with microcode that prevents them from doing anything other than run the workloads they were purchased for[2]. Adding (or activating/licensing) a general processing unit instead would get you the same "acceleration", but it would cost more due to the way IBM structures mainframe pricing. They know you can't use these zIIP licensed processors for general processing tasks, so they don't charge you as much for them upfront, and they don't count for software licensing charges in other ways. Nothing quite like this exists in the x86 world, but it does remind me a little of the time when AMD/Intel were selling 1/2/3 core CPUs that technically had 2/4 cores in the package, with the extras intentionally disabled to create CPU models for a specific market price point, or because they didn't work properly when tested at the fab. I still have a motherboard here that can enable the disabled cores on certain AMD processors (with a warning in the BIOS that they may not actually work). [1] http://ibmdatamag.com/2013/04/performance-and-capacity-considerations-for-ziip-engines/ http://ibmdatamag.com/2013/04/performance-and-capacity-consi... [2] http://www.itjungle.com/big/big013106-story01.html http://www.itjungle.com/big/big013106-story01.html
Nursie 12y ago
So am I allowed comments in this?
smackfu 12y ago
Its just a way to connect new stuff that outputs JSON to legacy software that expects XML input. Yes, this is what enterprise customers pay companies like IBM to do.
- drawkbox 12y ago
  Enterprise software is an adventure, you can easily end up in a parallel dimension of technical debt inception.
  - kyllo 12y ago
    You can easily witness organizations that have crossed over the technical debt event horizon, from which they have no hope of reaching escape velocity.
  - BerislavLopac 12y ago
    That's technically called "yak shaving".
chris_j 12y ago
This comes up every so often on Hacker News. The truth is that this isn't a bad joke by IBM. Rather, it was a stopgap measure that was created at a time when DataPower had native support for XML but not for JSON. A later release of DataPower added native JSON support and removed the need to use JSONx. Disclosure: I work for IBM and I asked a member of the DataPower team about JSONx the last time that it came up on Hacker News.
- curiously 12y ago
  lol I had a good laugh from reading the tweet and the comments below. "I’m working on a standard to represent MP3s as Word documents if you’re interested."
- masklinn 12y ago
  I still don't get why they couldn't just reuse existing semantically equivalent XML serialisation formats e.g. as far as I can tell, with the <nil/> extension XML-RPC's serialisation format is a superset of JSON. ASN.1/XER too.
  - A_COMPUTER 12y ago
    jsonx comes with a schema, so you can validate it and mix it with other xml if you namespace it. I actually see nothing wrong with jsonx if you're moving json data in and out of a system that natively uses XML. Some people need that stuff. Ten years ago I was working on a system that required me to format data as an APL data file because that's what format the the system expected data in.
    - masklinn 12y ago
      > jsonx comes with a schema, so you can validate it and mix it with other xml if you namespace it And you can't do that with pre-existing XML-based formats… why?
leoh 12y ago
It seems pretty ridiculous, but think about it for a moment. There are myriad ways of serializing XML into JSON and viva-versa. Having a published agreed upon standard could help for interoperability if you have some application that needs to interface with an application that uses the other format.
thristian 12y ago
Don't forget: Apple also replaced their lovely JSON-like "plist" format with an XML encoding of the same when they released OS X. And then it turned out that XML was expensive and inefficient to read, so they replaced it with even uglier binary goo.
emmanueloga_ 12y ago
... also this would allow for people who already invested in xpath/xquery/xslt to use those languages to process json data.

35 points by anacleto 12y ago

m0llusk 12y ago

Just keep moving. Don't make eye contact.

DiabloD3 12y ago

I want to know the use case that required this

gaius 12y ago
It's in the comments below "JSONx is a workaround in older DB2 versions to process JSON through the XML system."
- krylon 12y ago
  At least that is a reasonable, sane explanation. Otherwise, the idea of encoding data in JSON and then transforming that to XML seems a little ... convoluted.
  - gaius 12y ago
    It's particularly relevant on IBM as they have hardware-accelerated XML processing http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/hardware/features/zaap/ http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/hardware/features/zaap/
    - krylon 12y ago
      Man, I would so love to have a mainframe. Maybe, one day... UPDATE: I think I am getting the picture. This is about interfacing legacy systems to new ones. In that context, it makes perfect sense.
    - mrsteveman1 12y ago
      From what I read about zAAP and zIIP, they're not actually hardware accelerators like a DSP or a purpose built processor, rather they're a way to reduce the cost of running specific workloads on a mainframe, and IBM markets them that way[1]. The zIIPs themselves seem to be standard z processing units that have been loaded with microcode that prevents them from doing anything other than run the workloads they were purchased for[2]. Adding (or activating/licensing) a general processing unit instead would get you the same "acceleration", but it would cost more due to the way IBM structures mainframe pricing. They know you can't use these zIIP licensed processors for general processing tasks, so they don't charge you as much for them upfront, and they don't count for software licensing charges in other ways. Nothing quite like this exists in the x86 world, but it does remind me a little of the time when AMD/Intel were selling 1/2/3 core CPUs that technically had 2/4 cores in the package, with the extras intentionally disabled to create CPU models for a specific market price point, or because they didn't work properly when tested at the fab. I still have a motherboard here that can enable the disabled cores on certain AMD processors (with a warning in the BIOS that they may not actually work). [1] http://ibmdatamag.com/2013/04/performance-and-capacity-considerations-for-ziip-engines/ http://ibmdatamag.com/2013/04/performance-and-capacity-consi... [2] http://www.itjungle.com/big/big013106-story01.html http://www.itjungle.com/big/big013106-story01.html

Nursie 12y ago

So am I allowed comments in this?

smackfu 12y ago

Its just a way to connect new stuff that outputs JSON to legacy software that expects XML input. Yes, this is what enterprise customers pay companies like IBM to do.

drawkbox 12y ago
Enterprise software is an adventure, you can easily end up in a parallel dimension of technical debt inception.
- kyllo 12y ago
  You can easily witness organizations that have crossed over the technical debt event horizon, from which they have no hope of reaching escape velocity.
- BerislavLopac 12y ago
  That's technically called "yak shaving".

chris_j 12y ago

This comes up every so often on Hacker News. The truth is that this isn't a bad joke by IBM. Rather, it was a stopgap measure that was created at a time when DataPower had native support for XML but not for JSON. A later release of DataPower added native JSON support and removed the need to use JSONx. Disclosure: I work for IBM and I asked a member of the DataPower team about JSONx the last time that it came up on Hacker News.

curiously 12y ago
lol I had a good laugh from reading the tweet and the comments below. "I’m working on a standard to represent MP3s as Word documents if you’re interested."
masklinn 12y ago
I still don't get why they couldn't just reuse existing semantically equivalent XML serialisation formats e.g. as far as I can tell, with the <nil/> extension XML-RPC's serialisation format is a superset of JSON. ASN.1/XER too.
- A_COMPUTER 12y ago
  jsonx comes with a schema, so you can validate it and mix it with other xml if you namespace it. I actually see nothing wrong with jsonx if you're moving json data in and out of a system that natively uses XML. Some people need that stuff. Ten years ago I was working on a system that required me to format data as an APL data file because that's what format the the system expected data in.
  - masklinn 12y ago
    > jsonx comes with a schema, so you can validate it and mix it with other xml if you namespace it And you can't do that with pre-existing XML-based formats… why?

leoh 12y ago

It seems pretty ridiculous, but think about it for a moment. There are myriad ways of serializing XML into JSON and viva-versa. Having a published agreed upon standard could help for interoperability if you have some application that needs to interface with an application that uses the other format.

thristian 12y ago

Don't forget: Apple also replaced their lovely JSON-like "plist" format with an XML encoding of the same when they released OS X. And then it turned out that XML was expensive and inefficient to read, so they replaced it with even uglier binary goo.

emmanueloga_ 12y ago

... also this would allow for people who already invested in xpath/xquery/xslt to use those languages to process json data.