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Re: json v. xml

• From: "Rick Jelliffe" <rjelliffe@a...>
• To: "xml-dev@l..." <xml-dev@l...>
• Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 12:53:12 +1100 (EST)

derek denny-brown said:

> Aside from the cross-domain issue, I think XML also missed the boat by
> not providing a canonical 'object serialization', akin to JSON.  Part
> of the explosion of JSON is due to it's low barrier to entry.

"Missed the boat" suggests that canonical object serialization should have
been a goal of XML in the first place, which it wasn't. (But perhaps Denny
is right: if we'd gonge with the instance-based type annotation ideas that
IIRC Charles Goldfarb suggested, this would be a different discussion.)

The world is big enough for more than one syntax for things. JSON is to
XML what IDL is to DTDs.

Ultimately, the XML methodology is markup: annotation. (And arbitrary,
unlimited annotation with arbitrary constraint checking.) Not everything
should be markup.

We are better off with two (or ten) small, distinct languages that
developers can master rather than multiplying the complexity of XML in
futile attempts to make it useful for everything. The opposite of
complexity is not simplicity but modesty.

As I understand JSON, it is merely client-side programmers saying "Hey, we
already have a syntax for representing data structures in JavaScript, why
not just use that so we don't need any special API for naming and
navigating?" That is an utterly reasonable position, it seems to me.

Cheers
Rick Jelliffe

• Follow-Ups:
  • RE: json v. xml
    • From: "Michael Champion" <mc@x...>

• References:
  • json v. xml
    • From: "Robert Koberg" <rob@k...>
  • Re: json v. xml
    • From: "derek denny-brown" <zuligag@g...>