do not taunt happy fun JSON

Allow me to repeat myself somewhat and clarify my general opinion of JSON and its use in cross-domain browser scripting:

Happy Fun JSON is not really an API. Happy Fun JSON is not a bold declaration of side-taking in the grand war of web service specifications. Do not base business models on Happy Fun JSON. Caution: Happy Fun JSON may suddenly accelerate to dangerous speeds or stop altogether. Happy Fun JSON contains a liquid core, which, if exposed due to rupture, should not be touched, inhaled, or looked at. Ingredients of Happy Fun JSON include an unknown glowing substance which fell to Earth, presumably from outer space. If Happy Fun JSON begins to smoke, get away immediately. Seek shelter and cover head.

Do not taunt Happy Fun JSON.

Having said all that? Happy Fun JSON is pretty fun to throw around.

Archived Comments

  • Did it hurt when Happy Fun JSON fell from Heaven? ;)

  • Obviously, the new del.icio.us JSON url feed is crushing blow against XML Web Enterprise Services Declarative Net Neutrality.

  • I only wish you could pass Happy Fun JSON into Flash via FlashVars in IE. FF and Safari seem to have no problems with it.

    It would make authoring a richer content version of sIFR much, much easier.

  • You should be banned from talking about JSON if you think you have to choose one or the other. A place for everything and everything in it's place.

  • All this lynch talk - I just got throttled!

    Running the script here on a series of URIs got me the 999 error (no sure how many had run). There's a 2 second pause between calls, I thought that would be polite enough. Still throttled now, maybe 10 mins later. Any suggestions for what would prevent throttling? How long it needs to recover?

    btw, I think Happy Fun JSON is great, and not unreasonable for interop. But what isn't so good for interop is inventing a new HTTP code when there's 503 Service Unavailable (and a Retry-After header would be handy).

  • @jamesv: The first thing I did with JSON at work was pass it in to a Flash movie via FlashVars. This used a JSON decode written in ActionScript grabbed from JSON.org, plus a JSON encoder written in C# (it did not take long to write because I did not attempt to serialize arbitrary objects). Some gratuitous URL-encoding was also involved. Compared with passing the same data structure via URL-encoded XML to be picked apart by ActionScript's DOM support, it was easy and much more like fun.

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