Re: [Json] Nudging the English-language vs. formalisms discussion forward

["Pete Cordell" <[e-mail]>]

----- Original Message From: "Cyrus Daboo"
> Please take a look at Andrew Newton's spec 
> (<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-newton-json-content-rules/>).

Thanks Cyrus.  It certainly looks like another option.  I would suggest that 
the authors could look at the following to improve it:

- It doesn't seem to have much in the way of supporting modularity.  It 
would be attractive if a schema could pull in and use definitions defined in 
other documents.  Many IETF protocols consist of suites of components and 
support for that would be handy.

- It doesn't seem to support third-party extensions to a core protocol.  For 
example, HTTP and SIP are defined in a core RFC but there are then a number 
of additional RFC that define extensions.  Support for expressing how a new 
extension can extend an existing external extension would be good.  (Just 
about every schema language I've seen fails miserably at this!)

- The plethora of data types are a problem for schema languages.  I've come 
to the conclusion that the best option is to declare a "microformat" 
pseudo-type that basically says this is a string encoded in a particular 
way.  The 'particular way' can then be defined in narrative form as required 
(80-20 etc).  This avoids having to define the kitchen sink of data types up 
front.  e.g.:

struct Asset
{
    GPSLocation location;
};

microformat GPSLocation;
    // A GPSLocation is a pair of comma separated floating-point
    // numbers representing longitude and latitude.
    // e.g. "location": "0.0,51.5"

- Does it allow multiple roots to be defined?  Many protocols have 
request/response type pairs so it's nice to define a protocol that has the 
form:

"request": {...} and "response": {...}

Pete Cordell
Codalogic Ltd
C++ tools for C++ programmers, http://codalogic.com
Read & write XML in C++, http://www.xml2cpp.com
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Cyrus Daboo" <[e-mail]>
To: "Pete Cordell" <[e-mail]>; "Carsten Bormann" 
<[e-mail]>; "JSON WG" <[e-mail]>
Sent: Thursday, February 20, 2014 2:05 AM
Subject: Re: [Json] Nudging the English-language vs. formalisms discussion 
forward


> Hi Pete,
>
> --On February 19, 2014 at 10:29:32 PM +0000 Pete Cordell 
> <[e-mail]> wrote:
>
>> I thought I'd throw down n gauntlet as a baseline for something to be
>> beat. So I started with something C like, and stole stuff from other
>> languages and came up with the following
>>
>
> Please take a look at Andrew Newton's spec 
> (<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-newton-json-content-rules/>).
>
> I have used that in two specs of my own:
>
> <http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-douglass-timezone-service-10#section-7>
> <http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-daboo-aggregated-service-discovery-03.txt> 
> Appendix B
>
> I found it to be easy to use and provide the necessary "commentary" for 
> the JSON format chosen for those specs. I know several others who have 
> implemented the timezone service protocol and we had no issues with 
> interoperability related to the JSON format (beyond some poor text 
> descriptions on my part).
>
> As Andrew noted earlier, his spec could probably be simplified some more - 
> but we certainly don't need anything more complicated than what is there 
> now.
>
> -- 
> Cyrus Daboo
>