Sam Johnston <samj@samj.net> quotes Ben Black:
I'm hoping there is more to the various decisions than is outlined in this post. "Everyone is doing it" is illustrative, but not convincing.
XML drags along an awful lot of baggage, which has resulted in many folks using lighter-weight formats like JSON. ATOM, in turns, lards still more baggage into the mix, again, without any clear advantage in this application. Finally, OAuth is very much in flux, as the recent security incident makes painfully clear, and, once again, its compelling advantage in this scenario is not covered above. [...] The onus is on you to justify the additional complexity. Rejecting simpler solutions because they are unfamiliar is dangerous. [...] Enterprises currently use a lot of XML because that is what vendors like Microsoft foisted on them in the name of "standards". If you adopt all the existing validation and security stack for XML, you are so close to WS-* as to be indistinguishable. This work will fail if all it does is produce "WS-Cloud", and that is very much the path on which you are placing it with these choices. You can do better. [...] [It is] a lot harder to make poor, structural decisions using [json]
It's a great shame Ben hasn't joined the occi-wg so far. I'd like to put on the record my strong agreement with his points quoted above. I share his horror at the idea of accessing a simple API to a simple service via two layers of complex container formats, and agree that there has been no technical argument for this other than vague and thoroughly unconvincing references to 'enterprise users' and 'extensibility'. That said, our view is that this OCCI process will take place with or without us, and by actively taking part we can at least try to argue against some of the more extraordinary aberrations from clean design. For the same reason, I'd like to encourage Ben to get involved directly going forward. Cheers, Chris.