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Re: Python and JSON vs XML???

• To: Alan Gutierrez <alan-xml-dev@e...>
• Subject: Re: Python and JSON vs XML???
• From: Chris Burdess <dog@b...>
• Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2005 13:45:15 +0100
• Cc: Michael Champion <michaelc.champion@g...>,XML Developers List <xml-dev@l...>
• In-reply-to: <20050825121751.GB18883@m...>
• References: <e3a5cb2c05082500045293f51e@m...> <20050825121751.GB18883@m...>

Alan Gutierrez wrote:
>> For some time now we've seen the JSON "fat-free alternative to XML"
>
>> I'm not sure what to make of all this, other than that there is a
>> lot of dissatisfaction with the status quo with respect to XML and
>> programming, and a lot of experimentation going on to address it.
>> Some approaches might threaten XML's story as a universal data
>> interchange format, or might revitalize it by scraping off the
>> cruft, we shall see.  A few questions I'd be interested in hearing
>> others' take on:
>
>> -  I'm trying to understand whether JSON has a value proposition
>> outside of AJAX scenarios. Is JSON or Python  significantly faster
>> to parse into usable objects than data-bound XML?   Is anyone
>> suggesting it (or some Pythonic equivalent) to address the types
>> of use cases that binary XML is targeted at?
>
>     Doe JSON address binary?
>
>     It serializes to JavaScript data structures populated with
>     literals, so it can only handle text data.
>
>     Binary data would have to be encoded to text, just like XML.

There's another, perhaps more important issue. JSON assumes that string 
literals are Unicode; however, it doesn't appear to specify anything 
regarding how Unicode characters are supposed to be translated into 
bytes. The examples are trite, providing only representations of ASCII 
data. You can therefore be absolutely sure that there will be character 
encoding conflicts as implementers decide on their own what the 
character encoding ought to be. The declaration and content model for 
comments is also implicit.
-- 
Chris Burdess

• Follow-Ups:
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    • From: Uche Ogbuji <Uche.Ogbuji@f...>

• References:
  • Python and JSON vs XML???
    • From: Michael Champion <michaelc.champion@g...>
  • Re: Python and JSON vs XML???
    • From: Alan Gutierrez <alan-xml-dev@e...>

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