# When XML beats JSON: UI layouts - Instawork Engineering - Host: [engineering.instawork.com](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/hosts/engineering.instawork.com/) - Saved: November 10, 2019 (2019-11-11T04:16:53Z) - Record: https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/7d51082dbb3a/ - JSON: https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/7d51082dbb3a.json ## What Jamie wrote I do think a lot of developers are biased that XML is just "bloated and bad". This article makes a good point, it’s a different thing than JSON. > Both XML and JSON can represent complex nested data structures, but they excel at different types of structures. JSON’s origins as a subset of JavaScript can be seen with how easily it represents key/value object data. XML, on the other hand, optimizes for document tree structures, by cleanly separating node data (attributes) from child data (elements). 🤓 ## Facts - Kind: [Page](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/kinds/page/) ## Appears in - [WT126: Weekly Thing #126 / Nov 16, 2019](https://weekly.thingelstad.com/archive/126/), Notable Links 📌 ## Saved the same week - [Episode #54: David Allen on Someday/Maybe and Incubation Best Practices - Getting Things Done®](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/01d3c059d086/) (gettingthingsdone.com, November 9, 2019) - [System design hack: Postgres is a great pub/sub & job server](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/d5514d556d04/) (layerci.com, November 9, 2019) - [The Deletion of Yahoo! Groups and Archive Team's Rescue Effort – Waxy.org](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/0f65e5bd517e/) (waxy.org, November 9, 2019) - [Airbnb Promises to Verify All 7 Million Listings After VICE Report Exposes Scam - VICE](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/cc292f4901dc/) (vice.com, November 9, 2019) - [Let's Not Misuse Refactoring](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/3068c5954294/) (thoughtbot.com, November 10, 2019) ## Elsewhere - Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://engineering.instawork.com/when-xml-beats-json-ui-layouts-53c7f1d3fdb7