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If we follow Winer's advice and use just a simple subset of XML, what does XML buy us that JSON doesn't also provide with less overhead and better readability? (Yes, I know JSON doesn't have namespaces, but I'm not persuaded that namespaces belong in any subset of a data format that can be called "simple".)

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XML Schema is hilariously painful but it at least exists and is in fairly common use. JSON Schema is still an Internet-Draft that almost nobody seems to be aware of, so JSON-based systems are still at the "garbage in, garbage out" level and will only get worse with maintenance.

http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-zyp-json-schema-02

XML Schemas are well established in areas like insurance. I worked on a insurance portal in 2001-2002 that made extensive use of the Origo schemas - I realized that XML is really huge in some areas. To the non-enterprise / HN startup / web dev types it seems that XML can be wished away, but they have no idea of how well entrenched it is.

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