Douglas Crockford's Blog
I was invited to speak at XML 2007 last month. I was given the topic "Does
XML have a future on the web?" My answer was "yes." As evidence, I offered
that there are still people selling Cobol compilers. Once this stuff gets
into the enterprise, it can take generations to get rid of it.
A more interesting question is "Is XML on the web trending up or trending
down?" Clearly, it is trending down. For data transfer applications, XML is
losing ground to JSON because JSON is simply a better data transfer format.
And XHTML has failed to displace HTML in the marketplace. The benefit of
clientside validation has proven to not be a benefit.
I think you can argue, and in fact I did argue, that because of W3C's
adventures with XML, the web itself may not hav... (more)
Douglas Crockford's Blog
I wrote JSLint to help me to be a better JavaScript programmer. The language
is mostly good, but it has lots of kinks and traps. JSLint helps me to stay
clear of the bad stuff, which tends to make my programs more robust.
One day I got an email from a JSLint user suggesting that JSLint should check
for fallthru in switch statements. He argued that unintended fallthr... (more)
Douglas Crockford's Blog
DRM is sometimes called an enabling technology, in that it is supposed to
enable new business models. But it is really a disabling technology. As DRM
fails, there have been suggestions that the name be changed to something that
includes the word enabling; give it a better image; something more right than
rights.
DRM isn't just a disabling technology, it is also a ... (more)
Yahoo! User Interface Blog
Cooperating applications, such as mashups, must be able to exchange objects
with robust interfaces. An object must be able to encapsulate its state such
that the state can be modified only as permitted by its own methods.
JavaScript’s objects are soft and currently the language does not
include any means to harden them, so an attacker can easily access the ... (more)
JSON is a universal data format. It provides an uncommonly effective bridge
for moving data between systems and between languages. It is rendering the X
in AJAX superfluous. JSON is also really simple. This talk will spend several
seconds to fully explain the entire JSON language. There will also be a first
look at a new JSON solution to the Cross Domain Problem.
... (more)