VOEvent session

[Alasdair Allan]

> In the "real" world, I believe to have heard that Ruby has replaced Perl and Python.

Ruby? That's so 2009. 

Currently looking into Erlang, Cappuccino/Objective-J, Io and Go as my serious go-to-languages for 2011. Perl has gone through a low spell, but "new" Perl is coming and there may well be a resurgence next year or the year after. I've spent most of 2009 and 2010 writing in Objective-C in any case.

>  And I believe to have also heard that Java is effectively dead and isn't being used by anyone for "serious" work.  

Yup. Java is a dead-man-walking. Oracle has put a stake through it's heart, all we're doing is waiting for the feet to stop kicking.

> When I was young, one knew that the future was Lisp.

The future may yet still be Lisp, it's becoming popular again.

> As far as JSON is concerned: one woman's <> is another man's {}.   If you want simplicity: we could all agree to use Windows *.INI registry file syntax and be done with it.
> 
> Complexity isn't a question of whether one uses <> or {} or whether tags have attributes: complexity is simply complex and any hopes that inherent complexity will suddenly turn into inherent simplicity are bound to be dashed (which is not to say that inherent simplicity can't be expressed in needless complexity, but VOEvent 2.0 is not about inherent simplicity).

The difference between JSON and XML is not, really, anything to do with file syntax. When it comes down to it XML is not about file syntax, XML is about schemas and architectures. Conversely JSON is all about a different class of architectures and approaches. It just happens to be the serialisation used in those architectures.

I'm not interested in debating the difference between <> and {}, because we both know there isn't any. However the philosophy and ideas behind the syntax, the way you think about the problem is fundamentally different. I'd argue that the XML design philosophy has fail, abysmally.

It's yet to be proved whether the light-weight RESTful architectures will survive the long haul, but it's looking hopeful. When presented with a whole new API or SDK based around a RESTful architecture I don't immediately cringe back from the work of implementing things using it. That's a good sign, at least for me...

Al.