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<p><tt><font size="2">Mark Nottingham wrote on 04/13/2012 12:56:46 PM:<br>
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> In particular, if people are actually using these tools to do data <br>
> binding, it's going to lead them to place dependencies upon the <br>
> structure of our interfaces, and unless the scheme is constructed <br>
> *exactly* right, we'll get lots of bug reports in the future when <br>
> these tools base their "contracts" on their interpretation of a <br>
> Schema that got published on the Web site at some point in the past.<br>
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<tt><font size="2">Be a bit careful here. If you're suggesting that JSON is better because</font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">it doesn't force (or even give you the option) of being precise in what</font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">your interfaces looks like, implying that you won't get bug reports when</font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">the JSON changes, I think this is probably wrong. IMO, the stuff around</font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">XML like XSDs (and I include in this topic things like IDLs) just makes </font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">it easier for people to write tooling if they want. But in the end, </font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">changing an interface is just as brittle regardless of whether its in </font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">XML or JSON - both have extensibility points and both will have clients </font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">that will break with the 'expected' data goes missing.</font></tt><br>
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<tt><font size="2">IMO, both JSON and XML have their places. And I do agree with Mark</font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">on one key thing... don't add all of the stuff to JSON that people</font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">claimed was too heavy in XML. And, to me, this includes namespaces.</font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">In the end, once you start down that road you'll just end up with</font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">a curl-braced version of XML and won't we look silly at that point. :-)</font></tt><br>
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<tt><font size="2">Earlier you said:</font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">> It's not that just "our dev community" isn't seeing much value in </font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">> XML, it's a good portion of the world.</font></tt><br>
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<tt><font size="2">Again, this needs to be weighed very carefully. With emerging technologies</font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">its easy to assume that the entire world agrees with you while things</font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">are still too new to be part of the mainstream. This xml vs json fight has </font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">been going on for a while, and I've heard a number of times from a number</font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">of different companies that they will not touch JSON</font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">simply because its too new, too unstructured, doesn't have the tooling</font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">and validation capabilities of XML, blah blah blah. Now, ideally these </font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">same folks should be speaking up in the community to express their concerns </font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">and desires, but for whatever reason they may not choose to - or can't. </font></tt><br>
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<tt><font size="2">Now, I'm not suggesting that we MUST keep XML just to satisfy</font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">people who choose not to participate in OS, rather I want the decision to be </font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">made with all of the implications considered. And to me, knowing that Openstack</font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">might not be as easy a sell to some folks because their shop is so heavily</font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">invested in XML and not JSON (when, IMO, support for both isn't that hard -</font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">its just a matter of making it part of the normal code development/approval</font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">process) seems like it might be a mistake - at least given the current</font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">state of the world. After all, if XML were really as dead as some people</font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">imply I doubt we would even be having this conversation.</font></tt><br>
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<tt><font size="2">-Doug</font></tt></body></html>