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by hot_gril 1167 days ago
JSON vs XML isn't going to make or break your project. But why would you use XML for data interchange. It makes sense for things like HTML where you're writing a document, but otherwise, it's usually just a needless burden.

Like, if I were there when XMPP was created, yes I would have insisted on JSON. XML was a plainly bad choice. Edit: Oh, JSON didn't exist until a little later. Maybe something similar did.
1 comments
taeric 1167 days ago
I mostly agree. I do think Jupyter choose wrong by picking JSON for their documents. They are literally marked up source documents.

XML does have the "benefit" of being a bit more extensible than JSON. Specifically, being able to have namespaced elements in there does make some sense on paper. For example, you could have two extensions both add in data using the same keys, but different namespace. Can't really do that with JSON.

In practice, I think it just fell flat due to way too much "forethought" in things they anticipated people wanting.

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hot_gril 1167 days ago
Yes, XML is probably a good fit for something like Jupyter. Basically if you want to reuse a lot of "objects" throughout a structure and have the mean the same thing in different nested parts of it. Like how <a> in HTML means a hyperlink whether it's under <body> or some nested <div>.
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taeric 1167 days ago
I'd phrase it more that there is a document with mixed use items marked up throughout it. Some items in the document are code, in which case you probably want to fence the code with a marker on what language is used. Other items are just prose, in which case you'd like to just write the prose as much as you can.

Some items can even be other forms of xml that have their own schemas dictating what is valid. (Thinking SVG here.)

I'll also note that even there, I can see why HTML went with the odd parsing they do. XHMTL tried going with "well formed" documents, but that falls flat for the authors. Is why "sections" of a document are essentially just collecting all of the "h" tags and making an implied tree out of that. As opposed to making the tree directly. To that end, my markup language of choice for Jupyter style things is org-mode in emacs. Yes, it has some warts; but again, all formats that I have ever seen have warts.

Edit: I want to add that I don't intend this as a "correction." I should say that I agree with your post. Complicated field where I doubt I'd have done better than most others. :)

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