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JSON: A light-weight alternative to XML
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01/05/2006, Marc Abramowitz
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It’s pretty evident that JSON, because it uses JavaScript syntax, is certainly natural for JavaScript and especially AJAX (which is essentially JavaScript talking to Web Services). This is despite the fact that AJAX stands for “Asynchronous JavaScript and XML” - AJAJ (”Asynchronous JavaScript and JSON”) and AJADI (”Asynchronous JavaScript and Data Interchange”) don’t have quite the ring to it though. JIHAD (”JavaScript-driven Interchange of Hierarchical Asynchronous Data”)?
XML tries very hard to be completely general, extensible, validatable, and all things to all people. And the result is pretty complex. I was reminded me of the classic book, The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick Brooks and it’s essay about the “Second System Effect“.
Interestingly, several people were motivated enough to look for an XML alternative and as the story goes, JSON was independently discovered by a number of people.
It’s not rocket science, but it has the potential to solve a lot of the same problems that XML solves and to solve them in a simpler way. And if there’s something that it can’t quite handle because of its simplicity, then we always have XML.
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