[geebee]

I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but when I first read your post, I honestly thought that you were giving an example of how simple XML can be! After all, I can quickly glance at this bit of XML and understand what it is intended to represent. This doesn't look like SOAP-style xml to me at all, it looks like simple XML over HTTP.

It gets so much worse that this. Much of the generated XML I've seen (especially the stuff used for SOAP) is nearly unreadable by humans.

[RyanMcGreal]

In fairness, I pared down the example for clarity (and to protect the guilty).

[geebee]

Oh, it wasn't meant as a criticism. I think my original misperception just strengthens your point. XML written as simply as possible is still more complicated than JSON.

That said, I feel about XML much the same way I feel about Java. They are typcially more complicated and verbose than the alternatives, but I don't think you can pin the horrendous level of complexity on the languages themselves. There seems to be a stronger cultural distain for complexity in the communities around other frameworks and languages, and JSON reflects this.

Everyone is (in theory) opposed to "unnecessary" complexity. The real issue is where you draw the line. For some reason, the python/django and ruby/rails communities seem more inclined to say "no" to complexity, even if it means giving something up. To turn it around, you have to get a hell of a lot of benefit to convince rails/django people to accept the overhead of additional complexity. I'm not sure why - maybe this is because these frameworks were created by people who were agast at what they saw developing in the Java world?

This seems to be the case with JSON vs XML as well. XML isn't going to be as simple as JSON, but there's no reason you can't describe data in XML in a way that is concise, reasonably, simple, and easy to read (both for people and computers).

[prewett]

> but there's no reason you can't describe data in XML in a way that is concise, reasonably, simple, and easy to read (both for people and computers)

Yes, there is. Each item in XML requires 5 + len(tag) extra characters, minimally: <name>asdf</name>. Unless you make everything a property (e.g. <x name="asdf"/>), in which case you only need 5 extra characters (<x />) per parent item. JSON is minimal: you need no extra characters (or, arguably, 2 extra characters for strings with no spaces)

That's for people. It's even worse for machines, because they have to be able to parse <name>asdf</name> and <person name="asdf"/> and <person name="asdf">...</person> and then be able to verify it using a schema external to the XML in question.

What I don't understand is why people ever thought XML was a good idea. I took one look at in back in '98 when it came out (or whenever it was) and said "this isn't human readable (unless maybe you like writing your HTML by hand)" and proceeded to successfully ignore it unless I have to use it.

[RyanMcGreal]

> I feel about XML much the same way I feel about Java.

Heh. The SOAP WSDL I'm dealing with was generated by a Java application, and it has the Java cultural stamp all over it.