>
> Or do I miss something that makes it important for Clojure to be
> bundled so tightly with XML?
Where did you get the idea that Clojure is tightly bundled with XML?
It uses XML for the build script, because Ant is the build tool.
It includes an XML parsing library because practical work often
involves working with XML.
clojure-contrib includes JSON parsing.
I wonder what is the reason clojure uses XML standard wise and not
JSON.
On another note, wouldn't Clojure itself or rather a subset of clojure
be best to represent data? So to say something like CON?
Or do I miss something that makes it important for Clojure to be
bundled so tightly with XML?
Alas, XML has long past the point of being merely a buzzword. Some
ability to consume and produce XML is a necessity for interoperability
in many domains. Also beyond data-exchange XML also supports document
authoring applications and mixed content, where solutions like JSON
aren't so great. (In fairness, XML's not so great either. I'd rather
use ResturctedText).
JSON has turned out well, for what it does. If there isn't already a
JSON parser in clojure-contrib, perhaps you'd like to contribute one?
I'm sure it would find takers.
> On another note, wouldn't Clojure itself or rather a subset of clojure
> be best to represent data? So to say something like CON?
Yup, for clojure-only applications though there's no need for either
XML or JSON: we can just use clojure's (prn) (read).
> Or do I miss something that makes it important for Clojure to be
> bundled so tightly with XML?
I wouldn't consider Clojure to be bundled tightly with XML. There's a
single (rather simplistic) clojure.xml module included with the
language, which provides rudimentary namespace-ignorant XML support.
> Best regards,
> Heinz
// Ben