Re: [xml-dev] The Goals of XML at 25, and the one thing that XML now needs
On Mon, 19 Jul. 2021, 08:44 Arjun Ray, <[email protected]> wrote:
On Sun, 18 Jul 2021 20:52:27 +0200, Marcus Reichardt wrote:
| I guess the fixation on JSON by the XML community is because JSON ate
| XML's lunch in lucrative enterprise integration, so to speak.
Bingo.
Maybe JSON shows that ultimately XML's problem in that application was that XML was actually TOO simple! It needed more "complexity" :rules to support recognition of numbers, boolean, symbols in the syntax.
For example, say we added to XML simple typing by delimiters like this
<a b="xyz" c=123 d=false e=R23456 >...
where b is a string, c is a number, d is boolean and e is a symbol.
So which is actually simpler: implementing/understanding current XML with an XML schema, or this extended XML syntax which is trivial and conventional to parse?
Now I am not suggesting that this is the way to regain ground from JSON. It doesnt support lots of things: arrays, datatypes on data content, etc.. But it does not require schemas, and it does provide simple datatypes, enough for automatic data binding.
But when I look at all the hoops W3C XSLT WG is going through to support the bad fit of JSON to XML conversion, I cannot help but wonder whether it might just be better to make XML richer.
I am really noticing a dropoff of XML jobs this year. Maybe it is time to put some "electric paddles" on the patient, rather than leave it in its current obese coma?
Regards
Rick