Re: [xml-dev] JSON query processing

[Chris Burdess <dog@bluezoo.org>]

David Lee wrote:
> -=-> Chris says
> Because there are a lot of 5-minute programs to be written, and most of the
> time you're not writing the program but talking to the stakeholders to work
> out what needs to be converted into what.
> ------
> Even within one app, each request/protocol is a lot of '5 minute programs' 
> (in reality more like a few hours each)
> Add that up and it is a HUGE problem.  

You are of course free to point this out to your stakeholders along with the observation that if they would simply agree on one format for interchange it would be many times more efficient. However, people who do point out this sort of thing are generally called smartarses and don't get the contract again.

In reality it doesn't make that much difference since even if you do agree on an interchange format it will never match the schema of both parties exactly and therefore both sides will be doing some kind of conversion into and out of the interchange format for their own systems. The only real benefit that a defined interchange format would have is where you can define it to be more suitable for whatever transport arrangements are in scope (more compact, or fully encrypted, or easier to pass through some particularly difficult gateway).