Re: [Json] Regarding JSON text sequence ambiguities (Re: serializing sequences of JSON values)

["Martin J. Dürst" <[e-mail]>]

On 2014/03/12 04:19, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 11, 2014 at 2:08 PM, Nico Williams <[e-mail]>wrote:

>> JSON text sequences would be a new Proposed Standard (if we go there)
>> but like JSON, there exist uses of this "new" thing already -- that
>> is, before we get to writing the RFC.

> I think finding a standard JSON way to meet this requirement is
> appropriate. Blessing a particular approach that isn't in the existing
> grammar is not AFIK.

For the record, I strongly agree.

Seeing claims that we need a separate spec just because an initial '[', 
interleaving ','s, and a potential(1) final ']' is too much to deal with 
really surprises me.

At the utmost, this might become an Informational RFC if some people 
really, really want it, but it should NOT become a working item of this 
group, nor should it go to standards track.

Why? JSON is great, but the more variation we get, the more we end up 
with a *big mess*, even if every step may be small and look good.

As far as I have heard (no first hand experience, fortunately), CORBA 
ended up that way. Many people, in particular in the JSON community, see 
XML that way. Similar things have been said about ASN-1, although that 
may have been complicated from the start (again, fortunately no first 
hand experience).

Maybe JSON is just next in line.

Regards,    Martin.


(1) When you write out a log, there's no need to actually write the 
final ']' and then replace it by a ','. XMPP did something very similar 
for XML streaming, please see
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6120#section-4. In JSON, it's slightly 
trickier because you need an explicit separating comma, and a 'dummy' 
element before the closing ']', but that's not rocket science and well 
worth the effort to avoid format splits.