RE: [xml-dev] XML's greatest cultural advantage over JSON

[David Lee <dlee@calldei.com>]

Ok this is the last for a day ... I need to "get a life" ...

--------
No, you're a border guard, defending the XML turf against those strange 
upstarts.  You'll let their data in, if and only if it plays by your 
rules.  (Which is completely and deeply an XML attitude in any case...)
----------
Oh contraire  ! I have no problem letting anyone's data into guarded fortress (*).
Almost always it can be converted lossless and reversible with no loss of precision, structure or semantics.
And if you want to use another "fortress" instead go for it.

Its the other way around I am annoyed with.  Trying to get anything  but the most trivial of data
into the Worlds Best Format (JSON) or actually almost any other popular format is what annoys me.  
But give me JSON all day ... I will convert it into something I can use and give it back to you whenever you like
in your format of choice.  But make me give you MY data in JSON and then complain that it doesnt fit ... yea that annoys me.


----------

--------
I mostly live in documents.  These problems are growing, but I don't see 
a lot people eagerly reaching out for XML.  In fact, I see a lot of 
strange solutions that go out of their way to avoid XML - at the very 
least, they go out of their way to avoid exposing anyone resembling a 
customer to XML.
----------
Agreed at the *customer* level.   The idea long ago that the average *customer* would author in XML natively has been a failure.
Hell even *I* dont author in XML very much without a tool (much to the scoffing of my XML zelot friends :)

But by the same token  customers don't want to see the bits in the row of a relational database,
they don't want to see the binary BSON stream, they don't even want to see the engine in their car.
But I see that as completely irrelevent.   The same problem exists for JSON and HTML.
What customer really writes HTML ?  I certianly dont ... (and I view HTML as essentially XML ... <duck tomatoes>).
Still its irrelevent what the end-customer facing markup is - to what I care about.
In my supposedly shrinking island.

>The pile of documents is growing rapidly.  Interest in XML for document 
>processing is growing at much smaller rate, if it's growing at all.
I disagree.   But then I disagree with most everything you have said which is why this conversation is so interseting.
I see a slow but steady of adoption of XML as the underlying technology for documents.
I happen to work for a  company that sells such a thing so I am admittedly biased, but I can tell you the rate of growth of interest
in this is growing not shrinking.

>>>>>>>>
Your island isn't growing.  In fact, it isn't even an island, but a 
dwindling peninsula.  Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings.
>>>>>>>>>

I disagree, but that doesnt matter.  One of us has a microscope and one a telescope and only time will tell which :)
But still doesnt matter really.  

hence (*)

(*)
I find this whole discussion quite amusing being couched in the terminology of war, armies, defenders etc .
I do not view myself atleast as in any kind of war over technology.  Or defending it.
Although if I am forced to wear the metaphore, I see myself a defender against lies and myths.
The Fight against the Evil of the Wives Tale.
If I can dispell even a little bit of myth and clear away fog then the light will shine through better.
Then I can hope people will make better choices ... based on fact not fantisy.
If they choose something different then my toy of the day, fine ! Maybe I will go with them.
Until I find another toy.

But right now I love my toy, and have found none better for the games I play. I am not trying to defend it against another toy taking over (you cant pry it from my cold dead hands!)
But I am trying to dispel what I believe to be myths, misunderstandings, or sometimes complete and utter lies.

-David
(off to the real world !)