[mortarion]

I mean, at least JSON has a native syntax to indicate an array, unlike XML which requires that you tack on a schema.

<MyRoot> <AnElement> <Item></Item> </AnElement> </MyRoot>

Serialize that to a JavaScript object, then tell me, is "AnElement" a list or not?

That's one of the reasons why XML is completely useless on the web. The web is full of XML that doesn't have a schema because writing one is a miserable experience.

[bayindirh]

This is why you can have attributes in a tag. You can make an XML file self explanatory.

Consider the following example:

    <MyRoot>
      <AnElement type="list" items="1">
        <Item>Hello, World!</Item>
      </AnElement>
    <MyRoot>

Most parsers have type aware parsing, so that if somebody tucks string to a place where you expect integer, you can get an error or nil or "0" depending on your choice.

[dminik]

I had the displeasure of parsing XML documents (into Rust) recently. I don't ever want to do this again.

JSON for all it's flaws is beautifully simple in comparison. A number is either a number or the document is invalid. Arrays are just arrays and objects are just objects.

XML on the other hand is the wild west. This particular XML beast had some difficulty sticking to one thing.

Take for instance lists. The same document had two different ways to do them:

  <Thing>
    <Name>...</Name>
    <Image>...</Image>
    <Image>...</Image>
  </Thing>

  <Thing>
    <Name>...</Name>
    <Images>
      <Image>...</Image>
      <Image>...</Image>
    </Images>
  </Thing>

Various values were scattered between attributes and child elements with no rhyme or reason.

To prevent code reuse, some element names were namespaced, so you might have <ThingName /> and <FooName />.

To round off my already awful day, some numbers were formatted with thousands separators. Of course, these can change depending on your geographical location.

Now, one could say that this is just the fault of the specific XML files I was parsing. And while I would partially agree, the fact that a format makes this possible is a sign of it's quality.

Since there's no clear distinction between objects and arrays you have to pick one. Or multiple.

Since objects can be represented with both attributes and children you have to pick one. Or both.

Since there are no numbers in XML, you can just write them out any way you want. Multiple ways is of course preferable.

[jll29]

The file you got sounds neither valid nor well-formed. It might not even be XML.

I know you describe a real-life situation, but if XML gets abused it's not XML's fault - like it's not JSON's fault if JSON gets abused

[dminik]

Could you elaborate why you think so?

As far as I can tell, the file was a fully valid XML file. The issue is that doesn't really tell you (or guarantee) much.

There's just no one specific way to do a thing.

[bayindirh]

There's a trade-off and tension between simplicity and flexibility. In the recent days the post titled "I prefer RST over Markdown" has surfaced again [0][1], showing the same phenomenon clearly.

Simple formats are abuse-proof because of their limitations, and it makes perfect sense in some cases (I'm a Markdown fan, for example, but prefer LaTeX for serious documents). Flexible formats are more prone to abuse and misuse. XML is extremely flexible and puts the burden of designing and sanity checking the file to the producers and consumers of the file format in question. This is why it has a couple of verification standards built on top of it.

I personally find very unproductive to yell at a particular file format because it doesn't satisfy some users' expectation out of the box. The important distinction is whether it provides the capability to address those or not. XML has all the bells and whistles and then some to craft sane, verifiable and easily parseable files.

I also strongly resist that the notion of making everything footgun proof. Not only it stifles creativity and progress, it makes no sense. We should ban all kinds of blades, then. One shall read the documentation of the thing they are intending to handle before starting. The machine has no brain, we shall use ours instead.

I'm also guilty of it myself. Some of my v1 code holds some libraries very wrong, but at least I reread the docs and correct the parts iteration by iteration (and no, I don't use AI in any form or shape for learning and code refactoring).

So if somebody misused any format and made it miserable to parse, I'd rather put the onus on the programmer who implemented the file format on top of that language, not the language itself (XML is a markup language).

The only file format I don't prefer to use is YAML [2]. The problem is its "always valid" property. This puts YAML into "Risk of electric shock. Read the manual and read it again before it operate this" category. I'm sure I can make it work if I need to, but YAML's time didn't come for me, yet. I'd rather use INI or TOML (INI++) for configuring things.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41120254

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44934386

[2]: https://noyaml.com/