Re: [Json] Allow any JSON value at the top level

"Markus Lanthaler" <markus.lanthaler@gmx.net> Sun, 09 June 2013 20:57 UTC

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From: Markus Lanthaler <markus.lanthaler@gmx.net>
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Date: Sun, 09 Jun 2013 22:57:12 +0200
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Subject: Re: [Json] Allow any JSON value at the top level
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On Sunday, June 09, 2013 10:25 PM, R S wrote:
>> The most important thing for this WG is
>> to preserve backwards-compatibility. Turning JSON parsers
>> that are currently completely conformant obsolete and arguing
>> that they would error clearly breaks backwards compatibility.
>
> "In telecommunications and computing, a product or technology
> is backward or downward compatible if it can work with input
> generated by an older product or technology."
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backward_compatibility>
>
> Arrays and Objects at the root will still work, obviously,
> so this proposal can be said to be backward compatible.

You are of course completely right, backward compatibility was the wrong
term here. Sorry.


>> As someone else showed in a different
>> thread, this would e.g. break Rail's default JSON parser.
>
> How would it break that parser? My employer happens to operate
> a very large Rails site with heavy JSON traffic. We use a popular
> open-source JSON gem. It supports the primitive root values proposed
> here.

See http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/json/current/msg00670.html

Why can't a separate media type, e.g., application/json-value, be defined
allowing this? The fact that that hasn't been done in the last decade should
tell us something. Why do we have to change JSON in such a fundamental way?


--
Markus Lanthaler
@markuslanthaler