[kitotik]

I’m not sure that there were much better choices available at the time. IIRC property lists date back to NextStep.

By the time stuff like JSON started popping up, plists were pervasive all throughout OS X. Typical legacy problem!

[valleyer]

Property lists in NeXTSTEP didn't use XML but rather a different text-based format.

https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Co...

[azinman2]

Plists support dates (json doesn’t explicitly), and has you explicitly type the contents, which can help make sure that when you want a string you don’t get an int.

[trollied]

I wouldn’t view it as a legacy problem. There’s no actual need to change to another format (JSON etc?) just for the sake of it.

[saagarjha]

Property lists have a JSON format, interestingly.

[wooster]

The format plists used before XML was very JSON-like. It had its own set of issues, however.