XML is good for machine-to-machine dialog. It is wordy. But it helps when you need data to have properties that are well-specified and automatically checked. We get a lot of important weather alerts in XML, in a format agreed upon by the WMO (World Meteorological Organization). They have a structure that more and more countries are using. The Germans give us weather alerts in XML that is 99.99999% perfect for months on end except for the 1 out of 10,000,000 times they forget to include something and that’s when something breaks. The Germans are so good with their data we get in trouble when we trust them completely when in truth they are only 99.99999% perfect. The Chinese on the other hand use JSON, give things funky names and mappings, change things all the time, and when we call them, it’s “Oh we were going to tell you about that…”, so that data tends to be more chaotic, although not as chaotic as it used to be.

Is that really a benefit of XML over JSON vs. who is sending the data? Obviously you have more knowledge in the domain you’re talking about, but just from your description I’d think that your German collaborator is just a better party to work with than your Chinese collaborator.

Note: I’m not a JSON fanboy either. :wink: