XML and JSON in 2026

The best thing about long-lived incumbent technologies like JSON and XML is that nobody really has to think about them much any more. Except for, I do occasionally, because while I’m not the inventor of either, my name’s on the front of both official specifications. Hey, it’s JSON’s 25th birthday, what a run! And what ever happened to XML? Let’s shake off the dust and have a look. JSONiana RFC 8259 is now nine years old and, like all other RFCs, is immutable. And, as is usually the case, a list of errata has built up over the years. Until a few days ago, many of the errata apparently hadn’t ever been looked at for a period measured in years. Now they’ve all been rejected or accepted. Despite a couple having been marked “Held for Document Update”, nobody is interested in writing a superseding RFC. There are already enough other JSON specs [1][2] but fortunately they all say the same thing. Which is to say, JSON is what it is and will never be improved or changed in any way. Among other…