Re:IBM to Acquire the Weather Company
by mikestew on Wednesday October 28, 2015 @04:20PM
(#10467103)
> *.txt.gz is not exactly a modern data format.
You know what you get with a format that's not "modern"? A huge, mature set of tooling that works. For instance, without trying because just responding to this whinging is barely worth the wear on my keyboard, I'd be disappointed if OS X wouldn't cheerily open the file, and unarchive it into the original directory structure simply by typing "open weather_data.txt.gz" from a terminal window. In other words, one could script it. I'd show you how, but holding your hand leaves me with only one hand for typing.
> HTTP GET some JSON and immediately do something with the data
Well, that's the magic of JSON: any code I write just wondrously knows what to do it without me telling it how to parse it. How can poor ol' ASCII text possibly compete?
You know what you get with a format that's not "modern"? A huge, mature set of tooling that works. For instance, without trying because just responding to this whinging is barely worth the wear on my keyboard, I'd be disappointed if OS X wouldn't cheerily open the file, and unarchive it into the original directory structure simply by typing "open weather_data.txt.gz" from a terminal window. In other words, one could script it. I'd show you how, but holding your hand leaves me with only one hand for typing.
> HTTP GET some JSON and immediately do something with the data
Well, that's the magic of JSON: any code I write just wondrously knows what to do it without me telling it how to parse it. How can poor ol' ASCII text possibly compete?