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JSON's real value

As discussed in the previous article in this series, JSON is a useful format for Ajax applications because it allows you to convert between JavaScript objects and string values quickly. Because Ajax apps are best suited to send plain text to server-side programs and receive plain text in return, an API that generates text is almost always preferable over an API that doesn't; further, JSON allows you to work with native JavaScript objects and not worry about how those objects will be represented.

XML provides the same textual benefits, but the APIs for converting JavaScript objects into XML (and there are a few) aren't as mature as the JSON APIs; you'll sometimes have to take care in creating and working with your JavaScript objects to ensure that you're doing things that can work with the XML conversion API you've chosen. The same isn't true with JSON: it handles pretty much every conceivable object type and simply gives you back a nice JSON data representation.

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