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The fact that 99% of my RPC and event serialization has to be done in json is blowing my mind.
Where did we go wrong??
“It’s so simple” they say, wtf?
@mnl 
take: in a lot of ways, XML was and is better than JSON: it has far better tooling around it (schemas, XSLT, etc), and is still at least somewhat human readable… but everyone decided they hated all the angle brackets, so instead we got JSON.
@edmistond @mnl Everybody decided they hated the parse time, if one is being charitable. Everybody decided they hated having to think in trees, if one is being practical. Everybody decided they hated having to follow complex rules when their intent was simple, if one is being unkind.
@graydon @edmistond @mnl "Instead of regarding the obligation to use formal symbols as a burden, we should regard the convenience of using them as a privilege: thanks to them, school children can learn to do what in earlier days only genius could achieve." - Dijkstra
He was criticizing the idea of programming in natural languages. Now that that has arrived, it is clear he was right.
@ravenonthill @graydon @edmistond how is it clear that he was right?
Even as programmers, we program in natural language all the time, in documentation, comments, variable names, rfcs, GitHub issues, planning meetings, etc…
Dijkstra himself was a great natural language communicator, if it weren’t for his cheap quips.
@mnl @graydon @edmistond look at machine learning systems, which the very rich, who resent talent they don't have and can't buy, hope to replace actually knowledgeable people with. They're fine, until they start hallucinating, and then they're not fine at all.
If we want correct software, we have to use precise formal systems.
@ravenonthill @graydon @edmistond I think we’re going to have to disagree on these points :)