8 ms·

At least XML is hated for the wrong reasons (e.g. verbosity, esthetics) most of the time. There was for sure an era where it was overused (see Apache Cocoon fro

by cryptos 3mo ago

At least XML is hated for the wrong reasons (e.g. verbosity, esthetics) most of the time. There was for sure an era where it was overused (see Apache Cocoon from 2006 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Cocoon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Cocoon). But XML is still a pretty good format to exchange (and store) data and make sure the data conforms to a certain schema. JSON Schema in comparison is not nearly as powerful.

AnimalMuppet 3mo ago
1. What, in your view, are the right reasons to hate XML? 2. To me, verbosity and aesthetics seem like perfectly valid reasons to hate XML. Once you learn S expressions, XML looks disgusting. They implemented half of Common Lisp in a markup language.
- gf000 3mo ago
  > They implemented half of Common Lisp in a markup language Come on, S expressions are just trees, they are not God's gift to humankind.. and just because a language has an AST (surprise, a tree again!) doesn't make it a lisp. I can write a C program's AST as sexprs or a Haskell program's, yet neither will be a lisp.
  - AnimalMuppet 2mo ago
    S expressions are just trees. XML is just trees. But S expressions are much less verbose trees. Once you see that they're both trees, then XML looks disgustingly verbose. XSLT is what I meant by "half of common Lisp". It's probably an exaggeration, but once you can use XML to transform XML trees into other XML trees...
- cryptos 2mo ago
  The right reason to hate XML would be some technical limitation or technical issues with it. But XML works quite well and is reasonable powerful. So the complaints usually boil down to: It is ugly and verbose.
  - AnimalMuppet 2mo ago
    To me, verbose is a technical issue. I mean, it's also a taste issue. The verboseness is ugly. I don't like it. But it's a technical issue. You have to parse all of that verbosity, every time you read it, which is inefficient. If you're hand-generating it, which happens in the development process, you have to get all of that verbosity right, or it doesn't work. These days nobody hand-rolls a parser, but the interface to the parser is more clumsy than it needs to be, because it mirrors the structure of XML.

by cryptos 3mo ago

AnimalMuppet 3mo ago

1. What, in your view, are the right reasons to hate XML? 2. To me, verbosity and aesthetics seem like perfectly valid reasons to hate XML. Once you learn S expressions, XML looks disgusting. They implemented half of Common Lisp in a markup language.

gf000 3mo ago
> They implemented half of Common Lisp in a markup language Come on, S expressions are just trees, they are not God's gift to humankind.. and just because a language has an AST (surprise, a tree again!) doesn't make it a lisp. I can write a C program's AST as sexprs or a Haskell program's, yet neither will be a lisp.
- AnimalMuppet 2mo ago
  S expressions are just trees. XML is just trees. But S expressions are much less verbose trees. Once you see that they're both trees, then XML looks disgustingly verbose. XSLT is what I meant by "half of common Lisp". It's probably an exaggeration, but once you can use XML to transform XML trees into other XML trees...
cryptos 2mo ago
The right reason to hate XML would be some technical limitation or technical issues with it. But XML works quite well and is reasonable powerful. So the complaints usually boil down to: It is ugly and verbose.
- AnimalMuppet 2mo ago
  To me, verbose is a technical issue. I mean, it's also a taste issue. The verboseness is ugly. I don't like it. But it's a technical issue. You have to parse all of that verbosity, every time you read it, which is inefficient. If you're hand-generating it, which happens in the development process, you have to get all of that verbosity right, or it doesn't work. These days nobody hand-rolls a parser, but the interface to the parser is more clumsy than it needs to be, because it mirrors the structure of XML.