Not that I would defend JSON Schema, but yes, you did just reinvent the wheel, and it was also not a new idea. I thought that despite the verbosity of XML, WSDL and associated technologies solved this problem rather better. I have the misfortune to develop in PHP, so pardon the example, but the client-side code went something like this:
$PayPal = new SoapClient($WSDLLocation); $PayPal->SomeMethod();
Yes, you can get away with having a less verbose description language if your needs are simpler, but that to me just ends up moving the problem when your needs become less simple. It's not like you can avoid validating your requests in some way, and required/not required is where that starts -- but, I maintain, not sufficient. I most definitely fail to see client code generation as being a necessary step.
You could say I've made this mistake myself; the thought process that leads to code like this must not be unique. Web services need documentation if they are to be used, and since that code will only ever talk to other code, it makes sense to have a machine-parseable description. Language agnosticism follows as a matter of course. I'm willing to entertain that XML was a bad idea and JSON Schema is not an improvement, but I still feel that if one must reinvent the concept of a language-agnostic machine-parseable web services description language, one should thoroughly understand the prior art. It may be complex for a reason, and like it or not all that SOAP stuff actually tends to work pretty well. I'm sure I have every reason for wanting to see a better technology suite which is JSON based, and I wish this were it. At the moment I don't think you're headed in quite the right direction.
$PayPal = new SoapClient($WSDLLocation); $PayPal->SomeMethod();
Yes, you can get away with having a less verbose description language if your needs are simpler, but that to me just ends up moving the problem when your needs become less simple. It's not like you can avoid validating your requests in some way, and required/not required is where that starts -- but, I maintain, not sufficient. I most definitely fail to see client code generation as being a necessary step.
You could say I've made this mistake myself; the thought process that leads to code like this must not be unique. Web services need documentation if they are to be used, and since that code will only ever talk to other code, it makes sense to have a machine-parseable description. Language agnosticism follows as a matter of course. I'm willing to entertain that XML was a bad idea and JSON Schema is not an improvement, but I still feel that if one must reinvent the concept of a language-agnostic machine-parseable web services description language, one should thoroughly understand the prior art. It may be complex for a reason, and like it or not all that SOAP stuff actually tends to work pretty well. I'm sure I have every reason for wanting to see a better technology suite which is JSON based, and I wish this were it. At the moment I don't think you're headed in quite the right direction.