Re: JSON

[Scott Klement <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Pete,

You're right, JSON started life as a subset of JavaScript, and is widely 
used in web applications because JavaScript understands it natively.

However, if you think about it, it's really a better choice than XML for 
almost anything:

1) It's less "wordy" than XML.  This translates to fewer bytes needing 
to be sent over the wire, and a smaller memory footprint to work with.

2) It's structure is simpler than XML -- and that makes it easier to 
write/support/maintain JSON parsers, and they tend to run faster, and 
have fewer bugs.

3) JSON only supports one text encoding (UTF-8).  So unlike XML, there's 
no need to try to support every possible encoding under the sun.  This 
also makes it easier to write/support/maintain JSON parsers vs. XML.

I personally think JSON works better in most applications that folks are 
using XML for.   There are exceptions...  JSON doesn't have an 
equivalent of XSD or XSL, so if need that sort of functionality, XML is 
still the best choice.  But, in most business applications where things 
are a simple data interchange, I like JSON.

-SK



On 9/20/2013 1:11 PM, Pete Helgren wrote:
> I find that an interesting request because unlike XML, JSON was designed
> to be consumed by a browser or server with a JavaScript interpreter.
> JSON represents an object in text and when rendered produces an object
> for JavaScript to use.  Most JSON I have worked with or created has both
> data and JavaScript functions so using it to transport data between
> non-JavaScript capable servers is an interesting use case.