Comment by toyg
20 hours ago
Nah, we still have all those issues and more.
The hard truth is that XML lost to the javascript-native format (JSON). Any JavaScript-native format would have won, because "the web" effectively became the world of JavaScript. XML was not js-friendly enough: the parsing infrastructure was largely based on C/C++/Java, and then you'd get back objects with verbose interfaces (again, a c++/java thing) rather than the simple, nested dictionaries that less-skilled "JS-first" developers felt at ease with.
The thing is, JSON is even superior in C++.
It's a dumber format but that makes it a better lingua franca between all sorts of programming languages, not just Javascript, especially if you haven't locked in on a schema.
Once you have locked in on a schema and IDL-style tooling to autogenerate adapter classes/objects, then non-JSON interchange formats become viable (if not superior). But even in that world, I'd rather have something like gRPC over XML.
that's the thing, XML should have become javascript native so that we could write inline HTML more easily like JSX from react allows us to do.
It did somewhat. It was called E4X.
more like it almost did. bummer. thanks for the pointer. sad to find out that the attempt was made but rejected. i wonder why.