JSON is an amazing evolution to simplicity and one of the best new microformats of the 21st century. See in the early 90’s there were still many battles about formats, data and services really were non-existent. Sure there was some client/server based RPC and early remoting but it was more about protecting data and licensing fees to access data.

XML came along and many server platforms based on RFCs that made the web based on MIME and TCP/IP and many layers of the OSI. But XML really helped to simplify the output of data for many levels of developers and although bulky, it rooted out the data protectors and made it too easy to build systems that shared data. Formats like EDI and other tight textual formats survived the entire time but formats not destined to trade were also opened up with XML and spawned the service age.

The evolution to JSON a micro, object based and array based format is again so simple like XML and now so micro that it just is amazing to break it down to something that simple and have it spread as a baseplane of technology, and it has. It is ideal for machine and even human interpretation. Langauges like ECMA based scripts like javascript and actionscript have always been object based like this and it is quite natural there but it is also influencing a more functional approach in other platforms and even statically typed languages.

Just look at the amount of langauges that support JSON and have encoders and decoding tokenized parsers (I might add all of these parsers are extremely simple toeknizers, that is how formats spread, simplicity and open):

• ASP.
• ActionScript:
  • ActionScript1.
  • ActionScript2.
  • ActionScript3.
  • JSONConnector.
• C.
  • JSON_checker.
  • JSON parser.
  • json-c.
  • M’s JSON parser.
  • YAJL.
• C++:
  • TinyJSON.
  • jsoncpp.
  • zoolib.
  • Jaula.
  • JOST.
  • JSON Spirit.
• C#:
  • JSON_checker.
  • Jayrock.
  • Newtonsoft Json.NET.
  • JSONSharp.
  • LitJSON.
  • JSON for .NET.
  • JsonFx.
• ColdFusion:
  • ColdFusion 8.
  • CFJSON.
  • toJSON.
• D.
• Delphi:
  • Delphi Web Utils.
  • JSON Delphi Library.
  • JSON Toolkit.
• E.

• Erlang.
• Haskell:
  • JSON.hs.
  • HaskellNet.
• haXe.
• Java:
  • org.json.
  • org.json.me.
  • Json-lib.
  • JSON Tools.
  • org.json.simple.
  • Stringtree.
  • SOJO.
  • VRaptor.
  • Restlet.
  • Jettison.
  • json-taglib.
  • FLEXJSON.
  • XStream.
  • JsonMarshaller.
  • Flexjson.
  • Jackson JSON Processor.
  • JON tools.
• JavaScript.
• Lasso.
• Lisp:
  • Common Lisp.
  • Emacs Lisp.
  • Chicken Scheme.
  • MZScheme.
• LotusScript:
  • JSON LS.
  • JSON Reader/Writer.
• Lua:
  • Json4Lua.
  • Json.lua.

• Objective C:
  • BSJSONAdditions.
  • Cocoa JSON Framework.
• Objective CAML.
• OpenLaszlo.
• Perl.
• PHP:
  • PHP 5.2.
  • json.
  • Services_JSON.
  • Zend_JSON.
  • JSONRPC.
  • Solar_Json.
  • SCA_SDO.
  • Comparison of php json libraries.
• Pike:
  • Public.Parser.JSON.
  • Public.Parser.JSON2.
• pl/sql.
• PowerShell.
• Prolog.
• Python:
  • python-cjson.
  • simplejson.
  • python-json.
  • demjson.
  • pyparsing.
  • Choosing a Python JSON Translator.
• R.
• REALbasic.
• Rebol.
• Ruby.
• Squeak.
• Tcl.

• RFC 4627.
• The <module> Tag.
• JSONRequest.
• JSONRequest Extension for Firefox.
• The Fat-free Alternative to XML
• An example of JSON-encoded messages.
• The JSON Group on Yahoo!
• Yahoo! JSON
• Google Data

• JSONT.
• JSONPath.
• Jaql: A JSON Query Language.
• JSPON.
• JsonML.
• CSS JSON.
• JSON 2 HTML.
• XSLTJSON.
• xml2json-xslt.
• x-xml2jsonphp.

• JSON-RPC.
• JSON-RPC-Page.
• jabsorb.
• JSON-Cache.
• JSON.com.
• Persevere.
• JSLint, Syntax Checker.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 10th, 2008 at 8:55 pm and is filed under baseplane, standards, toolkits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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