Simon Willison’s Weblog

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Saturday, 25th February 2012

Has JSON pretty much replaced XML for string processing for the web, or are there use cases where XML is still necessary?

It’s replaced XML as the default format for most APIs. XML is still necessary for Atom/RSS feeds and other existing standards built on top of XML. It’s also a better choice than JSON for markup-style data—stuff like XHTML where tags are applied to sequences of characters within larger chunks of text.

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How can I sort a huge amount of numbers?

Sorting large amounts of data is one of the first exercises you’ll see described in any Hadoop or map/reduce tutorial—so I’d suggest taking a look at Hadoop.

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What are the ideal laser pointers for conference presentations?

I’ll swear by the Logitech Cordless Presenter: http://www.gadgetgrid.com/2008/1...—it’s very popular amongst friends of mine who speak frequently as well.

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2012 » February

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