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   mnl mnl mnl mnl mnl (mnl@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 22-Nov-2023 23:35:16 JST mnl mnl mnl mnl mnl

   The fact that 99% of my RPC and event serialization has to be done in json is blowing my mind.

   Where did we go wrong??

   “It’s so simple” they say, wtf?

   • clacke repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     David Edmiston (edmistond@fosstodon.org)'s status on Wednesday, 22-Nov-2023 23:35:15 JST David Edmiston

     in reply to

     @mnl 🌶️ take: in a lot of ways, XML was and is better than JSON: it has far better tooling around it (schemas, XSLT, etc), and is still at least somewhat human readable… but everyone decided they hated all the angle brackets, so instead we got JSON.

     clacke and silverwizard like this.
   • Embed this notice
     silverwizard (silverwizard@convenient.email)'s status on Wednesday, 22-Nov-2023 23:35:30 JST silverwizard

     in reply to

     • David Edmiston
     @edmistond @mnl People claiming the bonkers hell of JSON },] and mandatory comma rules is simpler is bonkers
   • Embed this notice
     mnl mnl mnl mnl mnl (mnl@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 23-Nov-2023 14:30:36 JST mnl mnl mnl mnl mnl

     in reply to

     • Graydon
     • David Edmiston

     @graydon @edmistond which is why we have json and json schema and json ld and bjson and oO

     clacke likes this.
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     Graydon (graydon@canada.masto.host)'s status on Thursday, 23-Nov-2023 14:30:38 JST Graydon

     in reply to

     • David Edmiston

     @edmistond @mnl Everybody decided they hated the parse time, if one is being charitable. Everybody decided they hated having to think in trees, if one is being practical. Everybody decided they hated having to follow complex rules when their intent was simple, if one is being unkind.

   • Embed this notice
     Raven Onthill (ravenonthill@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 23-Nov-2023 14:30:41 JST Raven Onthill

     in reply to

     • Graydon
     • David Edmiston

     @graydon @edmistond @mnl "Instead of regarding the obligation to use formal symbols as a burden, we should regard the convenience of using them as a privilege: thanks to them, school children can learn to do what in earlier days only genius could achieve." - Dijkstra

     He was criticizing the idea of programming in natural languages. Now that that has arrived, it is clear he was right.

     clacke likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Daniel Barlow (dan@brvt.telent.net)'s status on Thursday, 23-Nov-2023 14:30:44 JST Daniel Barlow

     in reply to

     • David Edmiston
     @edmistond @mnl in my memory, xslt was just a sop to people who rejected dsssl because they had prejudice against parentheses
     clacke likes this.
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     Daniel Barlow (dan@brvt.telent.net)'s status on Thursday, 23-Nov-2023 14:30:46 JST Daniel Barlow

     in reply to

     • Daniel Barlow
     • David Edmiston
     @edmistond @mnl should have stuck with DTDs, imo
     clacke likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     clacke (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Thursday, 23-Nov-2023 14:44:24 JST clacke

     in reply to

     • Kill cars for climate!

     @mnl Do you have a favorite JSON-datamodel-like binary serialization out of JSONB, BSON, BJSON, UBJSON, CBOR, MessagePack, etc?

     Asking partly because it's hilarious that we as a community haven't decided, in fact we're so undecided that at least two of these have IETF RFCs, and partly because you might actually have a preference and offer some insight. 😃

     @andrej

     #cerealization

   • Embed this notice
     mnl mnl mnl mnl mnl (mnl@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 23-Nov-2023 14:44:25 JST mnl mnl mnl mnl mnl

     in reply to

     • Kill cars for climate!

     @andrej

     Depending on the use case:
     - XML
     - protobuf/flatbuf/any decent binary serialization (much easier to handle)

     For readability and human consumption: YAML

   • Embed this notice
     Kill cars for climate! (andrej@trees.social)'s status on Thursday, 23-Nov-2023 14:44:27 JST Kill cars for climate!

     in reply to

     @mnl Do you have an alternative format in mind?

   • Embed this notice
     mnl mnl mnl mnl mnl (mnl@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 23-Nov-2023 14:44:28 JST mnl mnl mnl mnl mnl

     in reply to

     • joesabin

     @joesabin I’m kind of fine with code bloat, in the sense that we can build software that does a lot more. But json parsing is just… complex, feature-poor and json is an infuriating format and not even that readable to boot.

   • Embed this notice
     joesabin (joesabin@mastodon.world)'s status on Thursday, 23-Nov-2023 14:44:30 JST joesabin

     in reply to

     @mnl Yes, and code bloat has been caused by thinking memory will expand exponentially forever.

   • Embed this notice
     mnl mnl mnl mnl mnl (mnl@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 23-Nov-2023 14:44:31 JST mnl mnl mnl mnl mnl

     in reply to

     This is the direct consequence of “I program with vim and 80s unix tooling is the best we’ll ever need” thinking, imo

   • Embed this notice
     silverwizard (silverwizard@convenient.email)'s status on Thursday, 23-Nov-2023 22:23:14 JST silverwizard

     in reply to
     @mnl I program in nvi and believe that
   • Embed this notice
     Raven Onthill (ravenonthill@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 24-Nov-2023 10:33:23 JST Raven Onthill

     in reply to

     • Graydon
     • David Edmiston

     @mnl @graydon @edmistond look at machine learning systems, which the very rich, who resent talent they don't have and can't buy, hope to replace actually knowledgeable people with. They're fine, until they start hallucinating, and then they're not fine at all.

     If we want correct software, we have to use precise formal systems.

     clacke likes this.
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     mnl mnl mnl mnl mnl (mnl@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 24-Nov-2023 10:33:25 JST mnl mnl mnl mnl mnl

     in reply to

     • Raven Onthill
     • Graydon
     • David Edmiston

     @ravenonthill @graydon @edmistond how is it clear that he was right?

     Even as programmers, we program in natural language all the time, in documentation, comments, variable names, rfcs, GitHub issues, planning meetings, etc…

     Dijkstra himself was a great natural language communicator, if it weren’t for his cheap quips.