I agree, WSDL were great. There was no need to keep checking the API doc because the client codes were auto-generated.
If we can't have JSON Schema, perhaps we could have a large language model auto generate our client codes by ingesting the API doc.
I actually did miss the feeling of being safe in the serialization/deserialization of my data when JSON became widespread, you're right.
These flashback were specifically about WSDL maintenance by hand (it was not very human readable), and how the existence of a schema was used as an excuse to not actually document the meaning of certain fields.
I guess it depends a lot on people, but it seems like most systems need to be robust to idiots to some degree the more widespread they become.
finally come back to WSDL and SOAP.
sorry, you may have "terrible flashbacks", but I enjoyed those days, where I could have clients and server code auto generated, with automatic validation and so on, and I felt all these "unstructured" data sent over json as "dark ages".
I'm tired of writing again yet another rest client payload mapping by hand...