Re: guile-json 2.0.0 released

[John Cowan]

On Thu, Dec 13, 2018 at 12:33 PM Thompson, David <address@hidden>
wrote:

The catch is that '() becomes both the empty array and empty
> object so there's no way for the serializer to do the right thing all
> the time.  You could introduce a special value for one of those cases,
> and hey we're back at square one! ;)
>

Ouch, yes.  I suppose the Final Answer is to have a JSON config object
which specifies the
protocol for creating, populating, and dissecting objects (and maybe
arrays, unless everyone can agree
they are lists), essentially a record of procedures.  That way everyone can
do what they want --
but it complicates building programs on top of such an overly flexible
library.

It's a hard problem.  So far the workable solutions seem to be:

lists for arrays, hash tables for objects

lists for arrays, vectors of pairs for objects

vectors for arrays, alists for objects

None are ideal.

-- 
John Cowan          http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan        address@hidden
Be yourself.  Especially do not feign a working knowledge of RDF where
no such knowledge exists.  Neither be cynical about RELAX NG; for in
the face of all aridity and disenchantment in the world of markup,
James Clark is as perennial as the grass.  --DeXiderata, Sean McGrath


> - Dave
>