JSON/XML Redux

Don Box's Spoutlet

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Lots of folks around high-tech water coolers have been wrestling with the whole JSON/XML debate.

 

In terms of raw format and underlying data model, I think it’s now been beaten to death.  The Patron Saint of XML said it best here - it is in fact trees all the way down.

 

Most of the discussions I’ve seen or taken part in wind up focusing not on data model or format, but rather on the features that JSON currently lacks:

1.       A schema language that attempts to be a floor wax, dessert topping, and personal lubricant all at the same time.

2.       A widely deployed processing language that rivals Prolog in its intuitiveness.

3.       At least ten Java APIs that have at least a thousand users each.

4.       The database community trying to shoehorn it into relational or object database products.

5.       A high-science “description framework” that uses JSON syntax but has no relationship whatsoever to how people actually use JSON.

 

Until JSON provides (and subsequently survives) these five features, many users will have a hard time taking it seriously.


Posted Jan 17 2007, 10:26 PM by don-box

Comments

Paul Downey wrote re: JSON/XML Redux
on 01-18-2007 12:33 AM
LOL! I liked JSON before it was famous.. grumble ..
Steve Loughran wrote defending prolog
on 01-18-2007 2:56 AM
I quite like prolog; it can be a good language for working with XML in because it is graph centric. SWI Prolog has good XML support, and a really nice unit test framework.

Follow the link to see me trying to teach inference to the little one.

As for the merits of JSON, well, it eliminates any impedance between native language and wire format in Java script. Clearly that appeals.
Randy Charles Morin wrote re: JSON/XML Redux
on 01-18-2007 4:05 AM
I like this argument better than the previous ones. Still, I think the argument should be, I don't need another parse I've already got 50.
Dilip wrote re: JSON/XML Redux
on 01-18-2007 4:16 AM

Ah.. point 5 sounds like something Savas/Jim Webber might take offense to. :-)

I am, of course, only kidding.
Duncan Cragg wrote 80:20
on 01-18-2007 4:28 AM
In a nicely amusing way, you've more or less explained why JSON (or YAML, or something like these - data formats, not document formats) have a future.

As Tim Bray must have noticed, it benefits from the 80:20 Law of Success by minimising all this overhead:

http://duncan-cragg.org/blog/post/lighter-wins-2007/

Duncan
Mujtaba Syed wrote re: JSON/XML Redux
on 01-18-2007 8:51 AM
JSON will only replace XML where XML is mis-used (usually when it's coupled with XSLT). For examples, in partial web page refresh (AJAXian) scenarios, you want:

1. A fat-free data transfer format.
2. A deserializer on the browser that can convert the data stream into ECMAScript objects.

JSON provides both of these; XML doesn't.

Given that data pipes are getting thicker, #2 is far more important than #1. Now, if only ECMAScript had a xeval().
Brent Rockwood wrote re: JSON/XML Redux
on 01-19-2007 12:18 AM
So Tim, Sam, Dare, Don,

Lots of people are clearly trying to work around the same-domain restriction that most browser developers have built into XmlHttpRequest. A quick Google search will reveal lots of ways to manipulate the DOM that will probably work. Canaries and other server side techniques appear to be the appropriate answer to this security question at this point. All I really ask is that, if there's going to be a vulnerability, it be on the server side so I can sue. If it's on the client side it's my responsibility as a client.

However, the question then becomes, should we open up XmlHttpRequest to cross domain queries or should we shut down cross domain stuff on JSON and its (future) descendants?

Or am I completely off the mark?
anselm wrote re: JSON/XML Redux
on 02-15-2007 9:06 AM
Look at Chris Goad's JDIL grammer - at http://jdil.org . This is an RDF like framing for JSON .
Noah Mendelsohn wrote re: JSON/XML Redux
on 02-23-2007 12:49 PM
Two words: mixed content
dbox wrote 再谈JSON/XML
on 02-28-2007 3:14 AM
?????????????????????JSON/XML?????

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