• From: Jim DeLaHunt <list+xml-dev@j...>
• To: xml-dev@l...
• Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2021 19:10:06 -0800

Stephen:

Your question below frames the choice as about serialisation options ("is there more reason to serialize it as XML or as another format"). I would instead frame the choice as about what kind of information artifact do you want to have: a pile of information encoded using XML, or using CSV, or using JSON?  I would make that choice in part with an eye to how long will that pile of information persist, and what someone might want to do with it 20 or 30 years in the future.

What I take from the conversation on this list is that if the information is encoded using the right XML language (and schema etc.) then it will be a more comprehensible, re-usable, and thus more valuable asset in future decades with future systems, than will be the same information encoded as CSV, or worse yet, JSON. I could be wrong about that. I'm not an expert.

But I do think that it matters how you frame the choice.
    —Jim DeLaHunt

Given that systems typically hold data in some kind of code model before it is serialized to a final character encoded format required by the government such as XML, CSV (yes, right) or JSON, is there more reason to serialize it as XML or as another format such as CSV or JSON? Or is serialization to JSON so commonplace that there is little reason to look any further if given the choice? I could understand it if serialization to JSON poses a problem when the government puts necessary constraints on that JSON. Is the understanding of the practicalities of the possibilities for constraining the final, transferred data/document a reason to stick with XML? UTF-*, escaping, choices of alternatives in the text syntax, etcetera? 

On Tue, 9 Nov 2021 at 16:30, Stephen D Green <stephengreenubl@g...> wrote:

Hi XML Dev’ers,

Do you have any opinion on how long software systems communicating with each other (one-way or two-way) using XML might be able to continue to use XML this way? If, say, governments currently require data or documents to be sent to them in XML format, what professional advice would you suggest about how long would be reasonable before this use of XML should be replaced? Or do you think such uses of XML could reasonably be perpetual? 

Many thanks for your consideration.

Stephen Green

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Stephen D Green

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Stephen D Green

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