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0 pointsVerdex3mo ago0 comments

The quote that I heard (I think on HN) was, "If we had AIs to write XML for us then we never would have invented json."

My biggest LLM success resulted in something operationally correct but was something that I would never want to try to modify. The LLM also had an increasingly difficult time adding features.

Meanwhile my biggest 'manual' successes have resulted in something that was operationally correct, quick to modify, and refuses to compile if you mess anything up.

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zephen3mo ago

And a recent HN article had a bunch of comments lamenting that nobody ever uses XML any more, and talking about how much better it was than things like JSON.

The only thing I think I learned from some of those exchanges was that xslt adherents are approximately as vocal as lisp adherents.

ern_ave3mo ago

> a recent HN article had a bunch of comments lamenting that nobody ever uses XML any more

I still use it from time to time for config files that a developer has to write. I find it easier to read that JSON, and it supports comments. Also, the distinction between attributes and children is often really nice to have. You can shoehorn that into JSON of course, but native XML does it better.

Obviously, I would never use it for data interchange (e.g. SOAP) anymore.

zephen3mo ago

> Obviously, I would never use it for data interchange (e.g. SOAP) anymore.

Well, those comments were arguing about how it is the absolute best for data interchange.

> I still use it from time to time for config files that a developer has to write.

Even back when XML was still relatively hot, I recalled thinking that it solved a problem that a lot of developers didn't have.

Because if, for example, you're writing Python or Javascript or Perl, it is dead easy to have Python or Javascript or Perl also be your configuration file language.

I don't know what language you use, but 20 years ago, I viewed XML as a Java developer's band-aid.

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abrahms3mo ago

This doesn't sound correct. We have computers write binary for us. We still make protocols which are optimizations for binary representation.. not because it's a pain to write.. but because there's some second order effect that we care about (storage / transfer costs, etc).

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zephen3mo ago

And a recent HN article had a bunch of comments lamenting that nobody ever uses XML any more, and talking about how much better it was than things like JSON.

The only thing I think I learned from some of those exchanges was that xslt adherents are approximately as vocal as lisp adherents.

ern_ave3mo ago

> a recent HN article had a bunch of comments lamenting that nobody ever uses XML any more

Obviously, I would never use it for data interchange (e.g. SOAP) anymore.

zephen3mo ago

> Obviously, I would never use it for data interchange (e.g. SOAP) anymore.

Well, those comments were arguing about how it is the absolute best for data interchange.

> I still use it from time to time for config files that a developer has to write.

Even back when XML was still relatively hot, I recalled thinking that it solved a problem that a lot of developers didn't have.

Because if, for example, you're writing Python or Javascript or Perl, it is dead easy to have Python or Javascript or Perl also be your configuration file language.

I don't know what language you use, but 20 years ago, I viewed XML as a Java developer's band-aid.

1 more reply

abrahms3mo ago

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse