one of the biggest mistruths i've seen about the fediverse is that it is based on specifications. fedi followed a couple of specifications a long time ago. now it is unregulated, based on whatever behavior mastodon happens to have. the specifications themselves don't provide an entire social media network, which is why there are so many extensions just to make it usable. the spec is the mastodon codebase
and even then, activitystreams borrows it's extension system from json-ld, an overcomplicated serialization format for RDF, which is just worse XML. this means that, in order to make activitystreams usable, you have to implement an overcomplicated schema system that nothing else uses
the fediverse is unstandardized and entirely based on whatever happens to end up being used in practice. it is violated as implementations please and extensions end up based on throwing shit at the wall waiting for something to stick
+bonifartius 𒂼𒄄
@mia
> [...] activitystreams borrows it's extension system from json-ld, an overcomplicated serialization format for RDF, which is just worse XML
i never understood all the hate for xml, if used correctly and with sane tools it's very nice to use. doesn't happen often though. all attempts of inventing similar things for json seem to only have replicated the bad parts.
IMO the main problem with XML is that it required a little more thought and conceptual understanding than so many programmers were used to, so it was misused, and between the effort and misuse due to the effort, the result was the hate for XML.
Take the core question of tag vs attribute. It takes a little conceptual thought to think about which to use when.
And then you see badly implemented XML where some developer decided the "wrong" way. And your eyes bleed to see it :)
It's like seeing a badly designed SQL table with garbage crammed into fields that obviously should have been different columns in the table.
The difference is that at least the SQL would be internal, but XML tended to inflict itself on others.
Yeah, I was reminded of seeing cases of XML where the developer had basically make all tags "element" and then included attributes "elementname=X" where X should have been the tag name, really missing the point and ruining xpath/xquery functionality.
And that made me think of looking inside SQL database tables to see records composed of long strings of CSV shoved in.
Both cases developers really missing the point and giving up the power that their tools really gave them.
@bonifartius
Well to be fair, a lot of my experience dealing with other peoples' code and systems tend to involve open source, so you know, amateurs without necessarily high standards.
@mia