Today I read an article about how company X has improved things by amongst other things ditching JSON after 2 years of using it. Before I start on this subject I should say that JSON does have its place. If you have a web application where a browser is talking to a web server and in particular uses JavaScript then JSON is a good fit.
I've discussed this issue several times before with Brian Aker who works with me at HP's Advanced Technology Group and in the past I have been hit with the issues I'm going to talk about here.
JSON is human readable and easy to parse, that cannot be denied and for prototyping is good in a pinch. The first problem comes when you need to validate data. I've been stung many times by one end trying to read/write the JSON in a slightly different format to the other end, the end result is always not pretty. This is one advantage that XML and SOAP has going for it …
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