Let’s hope this JSON thing doesn’t catch on…

For providing data to client-side JavaScript scripts from your own server (Servlets/PHP/ROR/CGIscript/whatever) in an Ajax environment, I think JSON is the perfect fit. It’s very simple to accept and eval a JSON string from JavaScript and take action on it — especially compared to DOM tree climbing which sux.

But here’s hoping no one takes JSON seriously as a general-purpose data interchange format. We already have one of those. And it’s better. And it has TONS of great tools and ubiquitous platform support built around it.

Just say no to JSON for data interchange outside of client-side JavaScript/Ajax scripts communicating with your own server.