[data-protocols] Alternative Java Library

Thu Jun 20 20:26:10 BST 2013

Rufus,

I wasn't aware of the CSV Dialect Description format spec. I fully agree
with you that "even average non-techhy people can handle CSV" but the fact
that another spec is needed does not make things easier (from an spec point
of view at least) and makes me wonder if CSV was a good choice in the first
place.

Given this seems a strong pattern I wonder if we should have some extension
> (or sibiling) to Simple Data Format that does have the JSON approach -
> maybe JSON Simple Data Format :-)

I really think this would be a very good idea: CSV for non-techies, full
JSON for web services (that require by definition techy people).

The JSON-stat Javascript Toolkit <http://badosa.github.io/JSON-stat/> (a JS
library to process JSON-stat responses) currently supports a .toTable()
method that outputs JSON-stat data in some popular JSON table formats: a
D3-friendly format (an array of objects) and two Google-DataTable-friendly
formats (an array of arrays and the actual Google DataTable format: an
object of arrays). I will be happy to add a JSON Simple Data Format output
if you finally write a spec.

X.

On Thu, Jun 20, 2013 at 9:06 PM, Rufus Pollock <rufus.pollock at okfn.org>wrote:

> Ah understood and you make a very good point - it's why we have CSV
> Dialect Description format spec
> http://www.dataprotocols.org/en/latest/csv-dialect.html and that is
> part of Simple Data Format.
>
> That said most importers do give you the option of specifying the
> separator etc and, unlike JSON, even average non-techhy people can
> handle CSV :-)
>
> Rufus
>
> On 20 June 2013 20:04, Xavier Badosa <xbadosa at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Rufus,
> >
> > Note that I said "not very" international-friendly. The reason is: CSV is
> > not actually a standard, or at least it's a format that comes in many
> > (local) flavors. Local CSV-clients tend to acknowledge this and favor the
> > local CSV flavor.
> >
> > The fact has not to do with UTF-8 but with separators: many (most?)
> mainland
> > European countries use the comma as decimal separator, so CSV in those
> > countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, etc.) usually don't use the
> comma
> > as the column separator (see this Italian example). There's a good
> reason to
> > use the local convention as the local version of clients like Excel will
> > assume the local flavor.
> >
> > X.
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Jun 20, 2013 at 8:42 PM, Rufus Pollock <rufus.pollock at okfn.org>
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> On 20 June 2013 19:40, Xavier Badosa <xbadosa at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Jeff,
> >>>
> >>>> in the web service model, it made much more sense from the standpoint
> of
> >>>> performance and simplicity to keep all the data in a single JSON file.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> I agree with you (besides, I never liked CSV as the format is not very
> >>> international-friendly). I'd be interested to
> >>
> >>
> >> Not sure I understand. How is CSV not "international friendly" :-) (is
> it
> >> that utf8 support can be a pain?)
> >>
> >> Rufus
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Rufus Pollock
>
> Founder and Co-Director | skype: rufuspollock | @rufuspollock
>
> The Open Knowledge Foundation
>
> Empowering through Open Knowledge
>
> http://okfn.org/ | @okfn | OKF on Facebook |  Blog  |  Newsletter
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/data-protocols/attachments/20130620/7a7aa0a7/attachment.htm>