[occi-wg] Votes: XML vs. JSON vs. TXT

[Edmonds, AndrewX]

+1

-----Original Message-----
From: occi-wg-bounces at ogf.org [mailto:occi-wg-bounces at ogf.org] On Behalf Of Alexander Papaspyrou
Sent: 07 May 2009 18:13
To: Tim Bray
Cc: occi-wg at ogf.org
Subject: Re: [occi-wg] Votes: XML vs. JSON vs. TXT

Actually, while following the discussion for a while now, I feel that we have a strawman discussion here.

In general, I agree to the general consensus that data representation should be simple. Really simple. Nothing is more frustrating than having to implement, maintain, and sell a complex beast to people outside (tm).

However, we should remember to not mix up model and rendering.

The question whether to use RESTful services with CSV, WS-Mayhem, or JSON over avian carriers is a question of _rendering_. I second the fact that this is an important issue to decide upon at some point. But unless we have agreed on the _model_, we haven't reached this point IMHO.

The canonical way to cope with this issue (which, by the way, has proved right many times in the past) in many WGs within OGF is to separate this step not only in design, but also in specification: have an abstract "modeling" part in the spec which clearly defines the semantics the data, and one or more normative renderings for the abstract model.

Plus, if we manage to agree on a certain data representation until the final draft, we still can take this single consensus and promote it as the _only_ normative rendering.

Cheers,
Alexander

Am 07.05.2009 um 18:56 schrieb Tim Bray:

> On May 7, 2009, at 1:12 AM, Marc-Elian Begin wrote:
>
>> I'm currently using restlet to build RESTFul web-services (very nice
>> by the way) in Java.  In such a framework, generating the requested
>> format based on the requests's 'Content-Type' attribute is trivial
>> (as long as the transformation is available).  This means that my WS
>> can talk (x)html when the user's a human (me), or XML or JSON or
>> plain/text.
>>
>> So for me multi-format is mandatory...
>
> Could you expand on you you get from "Generating multiple formats is
> easy for me based on my implementation tools" to "multi-format is
> mandatory"?
>
> The intervening steps in the argument are not self-evident.  -T
>
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> occi-wg at ogf.org
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--
Alexander Papaspyrou
alexander.papaspyrou at tu-dortmund.de

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