Rare Home Truths about Windows

I never expected to actually read such news. A senior police officer spoke to members of parliament and candidly told them that they should use Linux if they expect secure Internet banking.

I guess the truth always comes out in the end. Microsoft has lies, hush money and non-tech savvy users on its side, but as Lincoln said, you can't fool all the people all the time.

Of course, I could also tell that we still have a long way to go.

The collection of MPs listening to van der Graaf were very enthusiastic about his suggestion but didn't understand what he meant and asked for clarification.

"You may need to explain further for us," said one MP, while another responded, "yes, we need to understand that".

On the brighter side, knowledge comes from asking questions and finding out more. When lay users find out more about Ubuntu Linux, I doubt if many will stay with Windows. The success of Firefox proves that people are not wedded to Microsoft's products.

JSON Schema becomes more Orderly

I have been convinced for a while that just like REST will gradually displace its more heavyweight SOAP/WS-* equivalent, JSON will slowly displace the mighty XML in its various strongholds (today Web Services, tomorrow the world :-). But to do that, JSON first needs to incorporate some rigour into its definition, using an equivalent to XML Schema, Relax NG or Schematron.

The JSON Schema proposal seemed to fit the bill quite nicely, but I was always vaguely uneasy that it was so verbose. There was probably no escape from that, since one of the requirements was that JSON Schema should itself be valid JSON (otherwise two parsers would be needed to consume a snippet of schema-compliant JSON).

Now along comes another schema syntax for JSON called Orderly, which has the twin advantages of being succinct and being able to round-trip to JSON Schema. The syntax has already been revised with inputs from commenters, and is looking much better in its second version.

Orderly's main advantage is its human-readability and -composability. Its simplicity (with no loss of rigour) will give JSON (and JSON Schema) the impetus they need to challenge XML. If Orderly catches fire, I believe it will accelerate the adoption of JSON for serious service-oriented work.

It's overdue.