Re: User Hypermedia format

Mike,

On Monday, February 24, 2014, mike amundsen <[email protected]> wrote:

> I've also added some text to the "value" definition to say JSON format
> MUST only be set to string, number, or literals (true, false, null) and
> MUST NOT be set to object or array. What is then implied (not yet stated in
> the prose) is that, to pass arrays or objects in the "value" attribute, you
> need to *escape* the object/array and pass as a string.
>

How does the XML format represent true, false, and null?

How does the XML format represent objects and arrays? (Some sadist will put
JSON in there unless we have a better answer.)

More generally, I imagine your intent is to constrain clients to adopt more
of a tolerant reader approach and use less automatic serialization and
deserialization.

At the same time, I think there's potential value in making compound,
complex data more of a first class citizen. Allowing bare object and array
data representations (not serialized into a quoted string) would let
clients and servers reach inside the data without additional explicit
deserialization steps.

I guess one risk of allowing objects and arrays is the antipattern of using
a single data element whose value is a very complex object.

What are the tradeoffs you're trying to balance?

Matt


-- 
Matt McClure
http://matthewlmcclure.com
http://www.mapmyfitness.com/profile/matthewlmcclure