Re: [xml-dev] use of JSON instead of XML

[Peter Flynn <peter@silmaril.ie>]

On 26/06/18 12:46, Simon St.Laurent wrote:
> On 6/25/2018 9:02 PM, Patrick Durusau wrote:
>> Right track? Not having explicit semantics?
> 
> Explicit semantics are usually lies anyway.  The XML core community
> tends to come from industries that believe deeply in semantics, and
> haven't figured out that most of the rest of the world isn't so fascinated.

Actually we figured that one out some decades ago. Most of us in
document XML couldn't care less if they're not fascinated. It's all
#IMPLIED anyway :-)

> It's not the measure, but it's an excellent sign that XML missed this
> supposed target audience.  JSON addressed their needs more easily and
> more directly.

XML should never have aimed at it in the first place.

> (XML also missed its supposed Web target audience, and I'm all too
> slowly writing about that.)

I think the jury's still out on that one. The browser makers missed the
boat, but by then they had missed so many boats it had become boring. It
certainly wasn't for want of the XML community trying, but as the
browser makers had never bothered to read the spec, and simply imagined
themselves a few pointy brackets around random tokens, those of us with
real-world XML applications simply gave up trying and went elsewhere for
our jollies.

> In my experience, those difficulties are oversold.  Programmers do have
> an odd allergy to angle brackets and prefer curly braces, but that's not
> the heart of the matter.  Programmers have their own mechanisms for
> enforcing the semantics of their moment, and don't find the industrial
> 'consistent semantic' toolkit XML created to be worth the cost.

Which is why the APIs are constantly being rewritten, I guess.

///Peter