[sf-perl] Slightly OT: Freebase User Group meeting next Weds

[Quinn Weaver]

On Fri, Sep 14, 2007 at 11:35:16PM -0700, Randal L. Schwartz wrote:
> >>>>> "Quinn" == Quinn Weaver <quinn at fairpath.com> writes:
> 
> >> Well, it's more like a subset of YAML, but it's the subset that I tend
> >> to use, so that's OK with me.
> 
> I don't know who started the "JSON is YAML" meme, but it's clearly gotten
> far too much legs to be the right thing.

My guess is it came from here:

http://redhanded.hobix.com/inspect/yamlIsJson.html

> *IF* you write your JSON in the right way, a YAML parser can parse it.

Yes, though "the right way" just means no /* C-style comments */ .
Modulo those, JSON is just a subset of YAML, right?

> Good luck getting a YAML writer to *write* JSON.

I'm not sure I understand.  By "YAML writer", do you mean a human who
is manually producing JSON, but who is more used to YAML?  I agree, I
wouldn't expect to get someone like that to get it right.

But I think of JSON more as a way for machines to dump data structures.
You have some structure on the server side, and you want to serialize it
for the client, so you do

    my $output = data2json(); # probably produces no /* comments! */

And $output is what the client sees.

Now, "the client" can be either A) your own web pages' client-side AJAX[1], or
B) some third-party code that is using your site as a web service.  Both can
use the same API.  If B relies on a YAML parser (say, because the language
has no good JSON-only parser), it will still work.  That's what I think is cool.

Does that make sense?  Or are we talking at cross purposes?  Anyway, thanks
for contributing to our list.  I'm glad to have you here. :)

-- 
Quinn Weaver, independent contractor  |  President, San Francisco Perl Mongers
http://fairpath.com/quinn/resume/     |  http://sf.pm.org/
510-520-5217