openstack team mailing list archive

[Joseph Heck <heckj@xxxxxxx>]

I beg to differ on the value of XML to enterprise customers - My perception is that validation of the data structure and valid values is important, but that doesn't mean it needs to be XML. The same can be done with JSON (although there's not the fancy validators set up for that), and JSON is establishing itself as a very common mechanism that's quick and easy to use.

The complaint with API's  - XML or JSON - from people working in enterprises and using them (speaking as one) is that the data structures aren't well known/documented and available to be understood. JSON data structures tend to be simpler (I know - I'm making a hasty generalization) and *simpler* wins the day for me.

If you argued XML output to match with pre-existing tools, I'd buy that. Not for "enterprise customers will be happier with it".

-joe

On Jun 2, 2011, at 11:20 AM, Jorge Williams wrote:
> I think we would lose some of the benefits of REST if we were to support a single format.  My experience is that we have two communities of customers some of which prefer XML and others prefer JSON and we should be able to serve both communities.  Amazon handles the same problem by supporting two kinds of APIs SOAP and Query -- REST allows us the capability to serve customers with a single API.
> 
> XML offers a lot of benefits in terms of validation, transformation, and tooling that's important for enterprise customers -- JSON makes sense in other contexts particularly web development.  I feel all  core apis should support both.
> 
> -jOrGe W.
> 
> On Jun 2, 2011, at 12:54 PM, Rick Clark wrote:
> 
>> Hi All,
>> Is it required for new openstack API's to support both JSON and XML, or would it be acceptable to only support JSON?
>> 
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> 
>> Rick
> 
> 
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