[downsplat]

> XML grew from SGML (like HTML did), and it brought from it a bunch of things that are useless outside a markup language. Attributes were a bad idea.

That's exactly what I wanted to say. The author talks as if XML was well designed to represent structured data, but it was not, it grew out of the idea of marking up text, which is a completely different problem. The hilarious part is that he doesn't recognize the problem when he gives his example of "or with attributes".

The other thing, is that the JSON model doesn't just give you a free parser/serializer in JavaScript. It actually maps to the basic data model of the entire generation of dynamic languages that the Web grew on: perl, Python, JS, PHP and Ruby. Arrays and maps are the basic way to represent structured data in these languages, and JSON just serializes that. Which means that getting data in and out of your language is just a single line.

The author seems to think that XML maps a proper conceptual model and JSON doesn't, but the model of "nodes with attributes and content" is a worse match for structured data than JSON's model of "arrays and maps of values".

Other than that, it's really a question of how much tooling you want to use. Both JSON and XML grew entire ecosystems of it, and nowadays if you want to read your JSON according to a schema into typed objects, you can, and for any good-sized project, you probably should.

Also: > There are cases where other formats are appropriate: small data transfers between cooperating services and scenarios where schema validation would be overkill.

That's actually most of the cases for your average web dev!