How to build cross-platform mobile apps with JSON

JSON is the new XML. Except XML was actually designed to have semantics, while similar attempts in JSON are just hacks.<p>In general, JavaScript is becoming the new J2EE. Ambitious ideas, clueless implementations, insane complexity.

Typo in title. Should read &quot;How to <i>build</i> mobile apps in JSON.&quot; And drop the &quot;Yes, JSON&quot; bit.

So why JSON of all things? When I reached the &quot;write a full declarative program in JSON&quot; section I was internally screaming &quot;but s-expressions!&quot;

<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;thedailywtf.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;the-inner-json-effect" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;thedailywtf.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;the-inner-json-effect</a>

That&#x27;s nothing. I can write a chess engine using nothing more than the Latin alphabet, Arabic numerals, and a couple punctuation characters. All you have to do is compose these building blocks in the right way, and gcc will take care of the rest.

I&#x27;ve seen so many projects like this over the years that claim that they&#x27;re the one that will allow for true cross platform app development, and they&#x27;ve developed a simple abstraction for doing so.<p>I&#x27;ve never seen any succeed at anything more than the most basic apps.<p>I put more stock in projects like Xamarin or MOE (and even they aren&#x27;t perfect).

It is made by the guy who made TextEthan.<p>direct link: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;jasonette.com" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;jasonette.com</a>

A heads up for anyone wondering if this can do anything &quot;real&quot; on the phone (such as, you know, take a picture or access the memory card):<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;forum.jasonette.com&#x2F;t&#x2F;media-in-android-port&#x2F;79&#x2F;2" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;forum.jasonette.com&#x2F;t&#x2F;media-in-android-port&#x2F;79&#x2F;2</a><p>Short answer: <i>Sort of</i> (on iOS) and <i>No, not yet</i> (on Android)

The framework and approach described might be useful in some cases, but... you still need to understand CSS, HTML, and... pretty much everything about webfrontendism to meaningfully design and &quot;build&quot; such an app, of course (even if you do manage to cram all that metadata into a single JSON file).<p>So it&#x27;s a bullshit title, basically.

If it can be done in JSON it can also be done in YAML.<p>I pick YAML.

But why ? What does it solve ? This is xml xslt alk over again.