[Info-vax] openvms and xterm

[Simon Clubley]

On 2024-04-23, Dan Cross <cross at spitfire.i.gajendra.net> wrote:
>
> In modern languages, one can often derive JSON serialization and
> deserialization methods from the source data type, transparent
> to the programmer.  Those may decide to use the JSON numeric
> type for numeric data; this has surprised a few people I know
> (who are extraordinarily competent programmers).  Sure, the fix
> is generally easy (there's often a way to annotate a datum to
> say "serialize this as a string"), but that doesn't mean that
> even very senior people don't get caught out at times.
>
> But the problem is even more insideous than that; popular tools
> like `jq` can take properly serialized source data and silently
> make lossy conversions.  So you might have properly written,
> value preserving libraries at both ends and still suffer loss
> due to some intermediate tool.
>
> JSON is dangerous.  Caveat emptor.
>

JSON is fine. What _is_ dangerous are the incredibly arrogant people
who think they can design the above libraries in a way that silently
alter someone's data in that way.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.