Re: [boost] JSON Archives for Boost.serialization

From: Jeremy Maitin-Shepard (jbms_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-03-23 02:50:44

Esteve Fernandez <esteve_at_[hidden]> writes:

> El Sábado 22 Marzo 2008 17:55:13 Jeremy Maitin-Shepard escribió:
>> Thus, it is not clear what advantage a JSON-format archive would offer.
>> The most obvious use for JSON is for communicating with a program
>> written in JavaScript, but then it would be necessary to follow a
>> particular format so that the JavaScript program could do something
>> useful with the data, and therefore Boost Serialization is not the right
>> tool for the job.

> Although the JSON name doesn't hide its JavaScript roots, it's no longer 
> constrained to that niche. JSON has found wide acceptance in other languages: 
> Python has at least 4 different parsers and Robin linked to a Perl parser in 
> a previous message, not to mention the Ruby, Java and PHP ones as well.

> Boost.serialization not only deals with serialization, but with the inverse 
> operation, that is transforming a previously serialized object in JSON back 
> to its original form.

Sure, but fundamentally, it will always use a "Boost serialization
proprietary format", regardless of what syntax is used to encode that
format.

> So, what advantages can a JSON archive provide? Plenty, 
> but the most common one is that it's more lightweight than the XML
> archive. 

If you want lightweight, there is the text archive format or the binary
archive format, but both of those formats are likewise "Boost
serialization proprietary formats", which would make them not very
useful for interoperation with other programs.

[snip]

-- 
Jeremy Maitin-Shepard