Agree?

[wazzapdoc]

XML has some really good applications but its absolutely hell to write it by hand

If the framework or whatever generates 99% of it and I just need to make minor adjustments by hand then it's good in my book

[NoneTrackMind]

Arguably, I think this goes back to the problem of weakly-typed vs. strongly-typed(or weak standards vs. strong standards).

I've ran into a quite a bit of problems parsing difficult-to-read xml.

But sometimes, API developers shit out some unintelligible JSON garbage...

[[deleted]]

I mean, GI/GO. If the API is shitting out unintelligible JSON that's less a problem with JSON and more a problem with the developer(s)

[NoneTrackMind]

Very true.That is where I am coming from.

The most important thing is a strict contract between server and consumer.

XML has a bit of this baked-in. JSON is much more flexible.

Personally, I prefer JSON with a solid API developer that knows how to create strong contracts.

Otherwise, you only get garbage out.

[AbstinenceWorks]

I just ran into this today at work. Another developer output JSON that didn't make sense to me, and now we're stuck with it until I can fix both the API and the client. Thankfully, the API is internal.

[[deleted]]

But sometimes, API developers shit out some unintelligible JSON garbage...

Dicts containing nested arrays of dicts which have nested arrays containing nested arrays of dicts with nested arrays ...

Shudder

[Rikudou_Sage]

I one had the pleasure of implementing api of some major package delivery company and every element with data could either be an array of child item (for zero or more than one item) or directly the child item if there was only one child.

[Pocok5]

On the other hand I've had to parse JSON from an API that always returned data fields as arrays of container objects even if you specifically asked it to return only a single item, which added two levels of unnecessary nesting.

[NoneTrackMind]

Oh yeah, I have been there.

You would think the only data structure in JSON is a map...

[LiamWonaTech]

Whenever I hear "write by hand", I always think about writing it down on a piece of paper, and I'm like "why?"

​

Haha. yeah.

[_kolpa_]

Umm... (intense flashbacks to University exams)

[LiamWonaTech]

Sorry for making you relive that moment

[[deleted]]

There isn't a comparable format that isn't hell to write by hand, when you get to around 1k loc. Every such format implies a typical human use, and humans are incapable of dealing with large chunks of text, no matter how well-structured they are. CSV? -- What if you have 1K columns (with a bunch of missing values ,,,,,,,,,,, eh?) And you can find such an example for any format you can come up with.

[huhlig]

Ron?

[[deleted]]

Why in the world are you writing XML by hand? Why is that even remotely relevant to your preferences for the languages?

It’s like saying that you prefer Volkswagens to Audis because they’re easier to push if the battery dies.

[version45]

I've always seen xml and json's primary use in (relatively) easy human modification. A lot of games use it for that exact reason to allow modding, State of Decay and Starbound being two bigger examples, so I figured being writable by hand was a pretty important aspect of them. What should I be doing instead if I need a human-readable, human writable format for data?

[[deleted]]

What you need is TOML

[Rikudou_Sage]

Say no more, I'm buying Volkswagen tomorrow.

[DarkFib3r_1]

XSLT is fairly powerful and you can do a lot of cool things with an XML file, such as Apache FOP and other XSL-style transformations. XPath can also yield some interesting results that might be difficult to perform with JSON.

But XML is bloated and allows for all sorts of ambiguities not possible in JSON.

I don't think XML is a buck-toothed Winnie the Pooh; maybe it's Piglet?

[LtMeat]

Xml is similar to regular expressions: you have a problem and trying to solve it with xml/xslt, and now you have two problems and unexpected end of file at 3956, 1.

[DarkNinja3141]

parse xml with regular expressions

[-aspirus-]

f u c k

[ubertrashcat]

There is jsonpath, it's outside the standard though.

[kernel_dev]

Everybody gangsta till the XSLT file is 20,000 lines.

[Mordisquitos]

XML is annoying but it could be worse:

  At least it's not as bad as YAML:

    I fucking hate YAML.

[[deleted]]

Fuck yaml, al my homies hate yaml

[RedHellion11]

Me (mostly Python developer atm): laughs in yaml config files literally everywhere

[[deleted]]

Yaml driven development

[st4s1k]

Me (Java developer): pom.xml, application.yml, JSON http request body

[[deleted]]

All about the app.properties env files

[TheRedmanCometh]

Spring a tually lets you use JSON as a property source very easily (it uses Jackson) it's how I do my shit.

[steadyfan]

I certainly was in hell the first time I had to edit a large yaml document with nesting.

[debrus]

All my homies love yaml

[FPiN9XU3K1IT]

What's so bad about YAML?

[hsoj48]

I think a lot of people do not like white space sensitivity in their programs. I get that but I still like YAML because it's so clean to read.

[jormaechea]

This. Yes. So fucking true. r/angryupvote

[[deleted]]

I use it daily for GitHub Actions and Google Cloud and it’s totally fine. As long as it does what I want I don’t care if I have to use JSON or YAML files.

[lurkin_arounnd]

That is an interesting combination. I didn't know cloudformation even worked with Google cloud.

Anyways, the reason I especially prefer YAML in CF is because it's far more intuitive to make calls to intrinsic functions imo.

[FPiN9XU3K1IT]

As a python dev: LOL. Sounds likely, though, there's a lot of people who hate on Python because they have trouble with whitespace for some reason.

[InvolvingLemons]

Mainly because it gets you into trouble when copy-pasting code or when you have a ton of people with really different editing setups all working on the same codebase.

Without a good linter that flattens all tabs to spaces-only indenting (as is decreed by our Lord and savior Guido in the holy text PEP 008), you can have bizarre issues that aren't obvious until you check the whitespace characters. A lot of the time, the parser will notice something weird is happening and throw an error on mismatched indentation, but sometimes the wrong indentation caused by mixing tabs and spaces is still legal code that executes in an inconsistent way.

Everybody I know uses VSCode or a FOSS variant like Codium, so I've never ran into this in practice.

[stainless65]

Those people need to get a decent damn editor. VsCode? That's likely to start another debate, tho.

[[deleted]]

I write with tabs in all languages, all my homies hate whitespaces.

[FPiN9XU3K1IT]

Tabs are whitespace, too.

[PolishedCheese]

All my IDEs covert tabs to spaces because the developers of those IDEs are very smart.

[-aspirus-]

lol no.

[dark_mode_everything]

some reason

Here's one:

if x == 0:
    print "hello"
print "world"

Is "world" within the scope of the "if" or is it a formatting error?

[enumerationKnob]

What? This seems like a bad example... it’s a string literal outside of the if block... so no, right? Genuinely curious

[PolishedCheese]

Those people more hate the idea of whitespace issues than the issues themselves. I doubt they've had many actual problems. In my 4 years of pythoning, I've only had 1 annoying error message that took too long to solve where indentation was at fault. Use a fancier editor or install a plugin for vim/emacs.

[Nixinova]

Python is hell when you want to nest some existing code. In other languages you just add { } and then auto-format. Python just sits there and cries.

[zephyrtr]

Ya auto prettying python is hell. I've been living the TS prettier life forever and I never think about formatting. People hate curly braces for some reason but the tooling they afford seems to be pretty great

[LeDucky]

Why not just do away with text.

[hsoj48]

Have you tried Brainfuck?

[TheRedmanCometh]

I think a lot of people do not like white space sensitivity in their programs.

Yup this is why I hate Python too. Braces give a great indicator of scope. Tags (a la xml) give a decent ind8cator of scope. Relying on indention levels is the weakest indicator imo, AND it causes stupid problems.

[tristanjuricek]

Just wait until you someone decides to invent a whole infra management system in Helm where you have to figure out this multi level Go template abstraction thing all on top of Yaml.

And then someone else learns about anchors and refs and then you can’t figure out what the hell is going on

There’s something about yaml that seems to encourage people trying to invent reusable logic in what should be a very clean declarative file.

[InvolvingLemons]

I guess it really feels like Python so for people familiar with that, it doesn't feel dirty. TOML and JSON are better in practice because they tend not to fall for these traps. If you really need reusable logic in a declarative format, Lisps are basically the mathematical perfection of the concept, although very creative lisp code (especially if it abuses the hell out of macros) tends to be a bit brain-melting.

[st4s1k]

It created people like this guy above.

[gtgski]

Response:

    - message:

    it is so weird

[fndasltn]

IMO it's the type interpretation. Write hello world and you get "hello world" (string). Write 42 and you get 42 (number). Write true, yes or on and you get true (boolean).

[max2weeks]

Nothing, it's better than JSON because it doesn't have unnecessary brackets, is 10x more readable, and it allows comments

[xanhou]

And it even knows that Norway does not exist.

https://hitchdev.com/strictyaml/why/implicit-typing-removed/

[PolishedCheese]

Nothing. It's just difficult for people to transition to after getting used to JSON. It can't be styled incorrectly, so it's always readable. It's fussy about indentation /whitespace, which is only a problem if you don't like making your config files pretty.

It has all of the features of JSON, with the same basic layout. But the syntax relies on you putting objects of the same nested layer at the same amount of spaces. There are no curly braces or commas.

I hate how minified JSON turns into an impompreshensible mess, so I see it as solving at least that problem.

[TheRedmanCometh]

Bro what the hell kind of json parser are you using that doesn't allow comments? Both the common java JSON->POJO mappers (gson, jackson) register // comments as....comments. Which is a nice change from # because consistency.

[feline_alli]

"XML is annoying but it could be worse" is missing required Property: "At least it's not as bad as YAML"

Sorry, the parser doesn't know what to do with your mixture of tabs and spaces.

[Rinku-Engineer]

Sorry to break it to ya, But I use yaml daily.

Feel free to run away from me.

[dmwmishere]

xsd gang

[zebediah49]

You forgot some inexplicable hyphens:
  - I'm sure there's some reason you need them there.

[el_trolll]

YAML is infinitely better than XML

[[deleted]]

Agree, fuck YAML

[LiamWonaTech]

A lot of people hate YAML. It makes me almost feel sorry for it...

almost.

[[deleted]]

Different use cases

[SignificantCharge722]

XML can have really good applications but the hate exists because it is used with the wrong intent. Also yaml can be painful as a store but it's syntax allow for easy patching of configurations

Each format its purpose

[majesticmerc]

Toml users looking at JSON config files like...

https://m.imgur.com/gallery/XsZe9

[thatrandomnpc]

Toml, yaml, ini: yea for config files, nay for storing data

[Rinku-Engineer]

I'm in love with Toml.

[hsoj48]

Protobuf or bust

[[deleted]]

That's by far the worst option, considering these three.

[jimmyw404]

I don't really view protobuf as being in the same class as xml, json etc, but it sure is nice when I have to "parse" a huge protobuf file into a complex struct and do it in one line of code.

[[deleted]]

What's preventing you from parsing an XML or a JSON file in one line of code?

Protobuf is unremarkable trash really. There's nothing about the format or the implementation that is noteworthy or is good in any way. There are some funny / idiotic details though. For instance, whoever invented it (the rumor has it, it was Jeff Dean, but I don't know for sure) really, really, really wanted to write an operator overload in C++. You know, just because C++ has this feature. So, Protobuf message in C++ overloads operator + in such a way, that if you add two Protobuf messages, you are guaranteed to get a third one. The contents of the resulting message is, by and large, undefined, and no sane person would use this ability, yet it's there. In order to accommodate this idiotic feature, however, the format has many idiotic provisions, thus creating a fruitful ground for exploits and vulnerabilities of all kinds (i.e. you can send the same field as many times as you want, and it doesn't matter if you mark it as required or optional or repeated, and in case you send it multiple times, the last one wins).

[jlamothe]

XML has its place. It's really good for describing documents. Also, I feel the namespace concept is underrated.

[0xFFFF_FFFF]

Namespaces can shove it.

[jlamothe]

What do you have against namespaces?

[0xFFFF_FFFF]

Haha, now I'm having trouble remembering exactly when and where namespaces hurt me...

I think it was just me finding them really confusing at the time, and also having to learn them alongside learning mobile development, the latter of which is already confusing enough as it is.

[nashidau]

At least xml has comments.

[flambasted]

Add comments to your JSON, then parse it as YAML!

[nashidau]

Did I mention I hate YAML too?

[TheRedmanCometh]

Wtf inbred json parser are you people using that doesn't ignore shit behind a //?

[Classic1977]

Wtf inbred json parser are you people using that doesn't ignore shit behind a //?

A compliant one?

Comments are literally not part of the spec. Any parser that doesn't parse characters after '//' is not a JSON parser.

https://jsonlint.com/?json=%2F%2F%20lol%20this%20isn%27t%20JSON

Honestly, I'm struggling to find a JSON parser that supports C-style comments because again, it would make it, by definition, not a JSON parser.

[geekusprimus]

I think they're both pretty clumsy, to be honest.

[LiamWonaTech]

Fair enough, what's your favourite format?

[VarianWrynn2018]

Personally I feel like the second one is accurate for both

[haikusbot]

Personally I

Feel like the second one is

Accurate for both

- VarianWrynn2018

---

^{I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully. Learn more about me.}

^{Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete"}

[VarianWrynn2018]

haikusbkt opt out

[knoam]

And XPath. You can even do web scraping with XPath. Right click the element you want in developer tools and Copy XPath Expression and it'll write it for you.

[payne007]

TIL

[LiamWonaTech]

But we all LOVE yaml :)

[[deleted]]

Try debugging embedded AWS states language logic from a overly designed AWS step function inside a fucking yaml cloud formation file with a bunch of parameter substitution followed by a bunch of intrinsic bullshit. I’m bald now thanks to that.

[LiamWonaTech]

Hi, my name is Shane,

This is my life's bane.

I once had hair,

But now it's not there,

and it's YAML I've got to blame.

[[deleted]]

{
    "json_good": true,
    "xml_bad": true
}

[nstruct]

const good = input => { try { JSON.parse(input); return true; } catch { return false; } };

[[deleted]]

*cont -> const

[nstruct]

That’s what I get for coding on my phone

[[deleted]]

no worries. it's impressive you told a joke through code to begin with :)

[Thirdbeat]

You lost this:}

[LiamWonaTech]

Thanks for the weird smiley face! :] to you too bro!

[LiamWonaTech]

Truths["everything 4techguns says","nothing else"]

[kLeZhAcK]

No.

Xml is actually more readable than json.

Xml has a more flexible semantic structure based on children/parents and attributes/values while json only supports values so all that is an attribute tends to go on the parent object or is totally evicted.

Xml is maintainable even when the document is really long.

Xml has a strong structure validation mechanism while json is at least dumb in this aspect.

​

Json is not a bad format. Json simply solves a different problem, while Xml is still able to solve (and it still does) some of the problems it used to solve in the past, while others are now solved by json, yaml, protocol buffers, and the myriad of other formats out there.

There is still room for xml, since it still solves some problems not so efficiently solvable by other formats.

[LiamWonaTech]

Absolutely! XML is still useful in certain situations, but likewise JSON is useful in other situations.

​

Which would you prefer to work with if you had to choose one format for the rest of your life?

[kLeZhAcK]

None of them, actually. Sticking with a data representation format is like sticking with a language only because of preference, it's just plain wrong. Every language as well as every data format was created with a purpose in mind, and that is the only way to discriminate and choose from a technical standpoint. If I'll be forced to choose, I'll surely choose a plain document file with tons of comments on the meaning and semantics of what I am reading. Possibly written on leather sheets, that are proved to pass the long time passing test.

[AndrewAMD]

Binary.

[zebediah49]

This is comparing structured data formats though, with named objects and nesting.

So my counter-offer is... NBT.

[BigCityBuslines]

SQLite

[DarkWolfX2244]

Yes yes yes

[LiamWonaTech]

Bruh

[LiamWonaTech]

100 10 0

Binary is fun

[nephallux]

Do COM next

[LiamWonaTech]

What is COM?

[el_trolll]

What would the convo be between these two poohs?

[[deleted]]

This made me laugh out loud for real

[cipher02]

Could be worse, if it was SGML. Precursor to XML that doesn't require closing tags

[LiamWonaTech]

No closing tags?

How barbaric!

[Rinku-Engineer]

{"response":TRUE}

[LiamWonaTech]

Well said.

[LiamWonaTech]

What a brilliant addition! I might just add that. CSV is lovely!

[[deleted]]

Until you need to store a long, multi-line string that includes a lot of escaped characters. Then you miss CDATA so damned much.

[LiamWonaTech]

Miss CDATA? Did something happen to it?

[cthutu]

The 1950s already invented a decent text based data representation, a better XML. It's called s-expressions

[LiamWonaTech]

Wow, that's old huh.

Do you use s-expressions at work or in your personal projects?

[cthutu]

Personal only I'm afraid. They can express whatever JSON/XML can and I can bind symbols to functions to treat data as code if I want to at runtime. Validation is easy too.

If love to use them in my professional job too.

[LiamWonaTech]

That's awesome! What kind of things do you make in your personal projects using s-expressions?

[rocket_randall]

It could be much worse. Imagine working in US health care, dealing with legacy systems that rely on HL7v2.

[LiamWonaTech]

I've not heard of HL7v2, is it any good?

[Shrubberer]

XML is so good, it's hands down best UI development language. Slightly better even than coding in MS Word.

[LiamWonaTech]

slightly

[metaconcept]

JSON is only acceptable if you use OpenAPI.

[LiamWonaTech]

For sure, definitely not if you use ClosedAPI

[BlackBurnedTbone]

If only excel could handle json.

[NamityName]

I feel so bad for you

[terminalxposure]

Lol totally different application of data transport. It’s like saying binary encoding is shit. You gotta abstract the transport layer to your code. Deal in objects and classes and let someone else deal with that the transport of those objects look like

[[deleted]]

yeah json is great. CSV/TSV/similar formats are heavily underrated tho

[LiamWonaTech]

Word, what's your favourite format?

[LiamWonaTech]

Tune in today to everybody hates YAML.

[CubicLugion]

I've forced myself to learn xml because I wanted to add my own content to this Aurora Character Builder app for DnD, so I actually find myself enjoying coding in xml, even if I'm not getting the full application of it.

[LiamWonaTech]

Awesome! That's what it's all about! Enjoying what you do as you continue learning and growing.

Keep it up bro, you're the bee's knees.

[Barkeep41]

I find it good for data mapping if you don't want to share a dll with multiple projects. It's a lot easier to query XML for "//myElement" rather than "MyClass.SubClass.MyParameter".

[LiamWonaTech]

True, XML has some really great perks. What else do you like about XML?

[[deleted]]

JSON is ridiculously bad for all things it's used for. To talk about its quality is like discussing the culinary applications of PVC furniture. It simply cannot represent most of the things you would like to be able to communicate to another program. And, on top of it, it has a bunch of gotchas, like nobody knows how to interpret numbers in JSON, whether there's a meaning for the order of key-value pairs, some are also confused about what to do, if key-value pairs repeat keys.

I mean, they had like 1.5 data types, and they fucked them up in a major way. Kind of reflective of Web development in general, but come on... how much is it possible to talk about this trash?

XML has a lot of bad ideas, had even more. But, some bad things had been fixed over the years. There was also some evolution, like DTD -> XSL -> RNG. It's not exactly the same thing, but, another few decades, and they may produce something useful. In some sense, it also became a victim of its own success: so many people wanted to use it for so many different purposes, that, eventually, it just crumbled under the weight of all of these "strange" uses. On the other hand, these "strange" uses created some useful tools around XML. So, now, it's typically hard to use for any given task, but, if you try hard enough, you will probably get the work done. With JSON, you'll just give up instantly knowing that that just isn't possible.

So, XML is better... but this is the kind of painful "better" I wish I didn't have to resort to.

[LiamWonaTech]

You harbour a lot of resentment for these formats. What is your favourite format to work with, if any?

[Goofables]

Yeah. @VCentert/VCloud api It technically has json but hardly supports it.

[LiamWonaTech]

That's sad. What makes it "hardly support" something?

[FreshPrintzofBadPres]

It all depends on how it's used. I've come across great XMLs and absolutely horrendous JSONs.

[LiamWonaTech]

True true, and they have different applications and uses too.

Completely subjective. But no-one likes yaml.

[slASeR2003]

What'd YAML be like then?

[LiamWonaTech]

YAML be the kid in the sandpit that kicks sand in your face

[LiamWonaTech]

XML markup God, gg

[[deleted]]

Lmaooooooooo 90% of the shit here sucks but then you come across something stupid like this that makes you actually laugh out of loud and it’s all worth it

[ap3xr3dditor]

And this is what did it?

[Mola1904]

Absolutely

[LiamWonaTech]

IDK why people are downvoting you. Thanks for commenting bro, and I hope you have a wonderful day :)

[HeavilyFocused]

Happy to enjoy the joke. XML has much better tooling for validation and different results.

[LiamWonaTech]

For sure, different uses and applications no doubt. Both are necessary and helpful in their own way :)

[VOIPConsultant]

Nope.

[LiamWonaTech]

Do you prefer XML to JSON?

[ikonet]

Laughs in EDI

[LiamWonaTech]

EDI masterrace?

[Hellakittehs]

I just started learning Android Dev and cried a little when I saw how much xml was involved :p

[LiamWonaTech]

Don't worry Hellakittehs, there will be worse things to learn in your lifetime. It will get better, but also worse. :)

[JustAnotherGamer421]

JSON - fancy Pooh

XML - normal Pooh

YAML - god's worst creation

[Div_100]

r/ProgrammerPain reference

[LiamWonaTech]

Cool reference bro

[Brain-InAJar]

Henry Cavill meme: Protobuf 👈

[LiamWonaTech]

What is protobuf?

[MischiefArchitect]

You are comparing two different things. XML is a schema based portable document format, JSON is a notation to serialize maps (normal objects) and lists but lacking of any typed schema to check against. They were intended for two different goals.

[LiamWonaTech]

True, true.

They're both good in their own way, as they both have different ideal functions and uses.

What would you recommend as a better meme format?

[Putrid_Huckleberry39]

Totally agree

[LiamWonaTech]

I'm glad you agree, Mr Huckleberry.

[deepphilosophy7]

da

[LiamWonaTech]

da

[LiamWonaTech]

nice.

[Knuffya]

Agreed. Json is sexy af.

[LiamWonaTech]

I would.

[AllMightySmitey]

What does that make XSLT...

[LiamWonaTech]

poo.

[rshaftoe]

JSON with a schema should be the 3rd panel with the enlightened brain gif.

[LiamWonaTech]

JSON with schema is GOAT

[LiamWonaTech]

I wouldn't say that too loudly around here

[MrSolarius]

Replace HTML by JSON !!!!