Content-Type: RST

JSON rocks my socks. It stands for JavaScript Object Notation, and is
an awesome new way to haul information around when space is not an
issue (read: similar to what XML does). However, XML and JSON are
different beasts. To an inventive mind, JSON can be used to completely
replace XML, but XML has a much more acceptable syntax for lists of
stuff which have attributes attached to them. JSON is good for
describing intricate data structures, such as an array containing some
arrays and some dictionaries, and the dictionaries each contain values
of other dictionaries, lists, and individual string, integer, or
boolean values. And, while  

.. _JSON: http://www.json.org

.. sourcecode :: xml

   <item> 
     <title> XML </title> 
     <value type="bool"> false </value> 
   </item>

may be fun for some people to write, I prefer 

.. sourcecode :: json

   {"title":"JSON", "value":true}

I'll explain exactly how this works, after you see this awesome
example, executed in Python2.6 via the new json module! 

.. sourcecode :: python

   >>> data = { 'a':1 , 2:'b' , 'foo':'bar', 'baz':{ 'yay':[1,'this',2,'is',3,'json'] , 'is json awesome?':True}}
   >>> data
   {'a': 1, 2: 'b', 'foo': 'bar', 'baz': {'is json awesome?': True, 'yay': [1, 'this', 2, 'is', 3, 'json']}}
   >>> import json

   >>> json_data = json.dumps(data)
   >>> json_data
   '{"a": 1, "2": "b", "foo": "bar", "baz": {"is json awesome?": true, "yay": [1, "this", 2, "is", 3, "json"]}}'
   >>> pretty_json_data = json.dumps(data, indent=2)
   >>> print pretty_json_data
   {
     "a": 1, 

     "2": "b", 
     "foo": "bar", 
     "baz": {
       "is json awesome?": true, 
       "yay": [
         1, 
         "this", 
         2, 
         "is", 

         3, 
         "json"
       ]
     }
   }
   >>> edited_json_data = json_data.upper().replace('TRUE', 'true')  # more on this later
   >>> edited_data = json.loads(edited_json_data)
   >>> edited_data

   {u'A': 1, u'2': u'B', u'BAZ': {u'IS JSON AWESOME?': True, u'YAY': [1, u'THIS', 2, u'IS', 3, u'JSON']}, u'FOO': u'BAR'}

JSON is exactly what it sounds like: JavaScript Object Notation. I
could take the string contents of json_data and stick them into a "var
x = " statement in Javascript and it would immediately
work. Implementations of JSON are present in "C, C++, C#, Java,
JavaScript, Perl, Python, and many others", so there's no question of
the portability of this beauty. Now, caveats? I've found two: 

- See where it turned the 2 into "2"? Since this is JSON, not
  PYON, it can only use strings for keys. python-json seems to
  take care of that gracefully, though.
- Javascript is case sensitive about its booleans. I had to do a
  .replace('TRUE','true') for my code to run.  

Basically, just the limitations of Javascript itself. But, that doesnt
mean it's any (much) less awesome! Besides, Google is using it as the
standard output for its geocoding service. How cool is that? 

-----------------------

Now, on to my second topic:  Antigravity_. Yes, Python will allow you
to levitate in the near future as one of its core features. Just
"import antigravity" and you'll be flying. However, this feature
doesn't seem to be included in the Ubuntu python2.5 or python2.6
packages. Instead, it is included in the python3.0 package! Try it:

.. _Antigravity: http://xkcd.com/353/

.. sourcecode :: shell

   fsufitch@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt-get install python3.0 
   ...
   fsufitch@ubuntu:~$ python3.0 -c "import antigravity" 

Whee!!