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JSON Schema Demystified: Dialects, Vocabularies and Metaschemas(iankduncan.com)
35 points by navigate8310 4 hours ago | 18 comments
gregsdennis 31 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

I think the post is generally pretty good. There are some things that I would have stated differently.

"Unfortunately, [the terms] leaked into the documentation that everyone reads" - We did this on purpose to align everyone's terms. It makes things so much easier when the people asking and answering questions are using the same language.

"The official JSON Schema website has a validator you can try: https://www.jsonschemavalidator.net/" - Would have been better to point to the actual official JSON Schema website's tools page (https://json-schema.org/tools) that lists many online validators.

There are some interesting conceptions of OpenAPI in here as well. Specifically, OpenAPI isn't a JSON Schema document. It's its own kind of document that has JSON Schemas embedded in it.

Still, it's a decent high-level summary. If you're interested in diving a bit deeper, definitely come visit us in Slack (https://json-schema.org/slack).

stabbles 39 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The metaschemas are useful but not strict enough. They don't set `additionalProperties: false`, which is great if you wanna extend the schema with your own properties, but it won't catch simple typos.

For example, the following issues pass under the metaschema.

    {"foo": {"bar": { ... }}}  # wrong
    {"foo": {"type": "object", "properties": {"bar": { ... }}}} # correct

    {"additional_properties": false} # wrong
    {"additionalProperties": false} # correct
gregsdennis 30 minutes ago | parent [-]

This is intentional because unknown keywords are permitted with JSON Schema 2020-12 and prior. We are changing this with the upcoming version, which means we'll be updating the meta-schema to enforce it as well.

boricj 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'm working with JSON schema through OpenAPI specifications at work. I think it's a bit of a double-edged sword: it's very nice to write things in, but it's a little bit too flexible when it comes to writing tools that don't involve validating JSON documents.

I'm in the process of writing a toolchain of sorts, with the OpenAPI document as an abstract syntax tree that goes through various passes (parsing, validation, aggregation, analysis, transformation, serialization...). My immediate use-case is generating C++ type/class headers from component schemas, with the intent to eventually auto-generate as much code as I can from a single source of truth specification (like binding these generated C++ data classes with serializers/deserializers, generating a command-line interface...).

JSON schema is so flexible that I have several passes to normalize/canonicalize the component schemas of an OpenAPI document into something that I can then project into the C++ language. It works, but this was significantly trickier to accomplish than I anticipated.

rollulus 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I used to believe that I was working with JSON schema through OpenAPI 3.0, but then I learned a hard lesson that it uses an “extended subset” of it. And what does that mean? It “means that some keywords are supported and some are not, some keywords have slightly different usage than in JSON Schema, and additional keywords are introduced.” [1]. Yes, that’s a bonkers way to say “this is not JSON schema although it looks similar enough to deceive you”. This word game and engineering choice is so bizarre that it’s almost funny.

[1]: https://swagger.io/docs/specification/v3_0/data-models/keywo...

ether_at_cpan an hour ago | parent [-]

OpenAPI 3.1 replaced the not-a-superset-or-subset of JSON Schema with the actual JSON Schema (latest version) over five years ago. No one should be using 3.0.x anymore. And 3.2 came out a few months ago, containing lots of features that have been in high demand (support for arbitrary HTTP methods, full expression of multipart and streaming messages, etc).

jopsen 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

JSON schema was nice when it was simple.

Now it feels like writing a validator is extremely complicated.

IMO, the built-in vocabularies were enough, and keeping it simple would provide more value.

JSON as a format didn't win because it supported binary number encoding or could be extended with custom data types -- but rather because it couldn't.

gregsdennis 27 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

I'm currently rebuilding my implementation JsonSchema.Net from the ground up. I completed 95% of it in a weekend, and it already supports all the published versions Draft 6 and later, including the more complex keywords. Granted, I have a particularly deep understanding of the spec already, but it doesn't feel overly burdensome.

weinzierl 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This and schema support for JSON will always be an ill fitting afterthought. If you really, really need the strictness and correctness (and you most probably don't) XML has you covered.

jhoechtl 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think JSON Schema made the same fallacy as eg. OWL did: The assumption of an open world. 99% percent of the time you want to express "This message should look like this and everything else is wrong". Instead JSON-S went the way to make everything possible at the price of rendering the default unwieldy.

ether_at_cpan an hour ago | parent [-]

There's a way to express that though: by adding `"unevaluatedProperties": false` underneath your properties list.

adamzwasserman 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The deeper principle here: "stop lying about where truth lives."

I've been exploring how this generalizes beyond side effects. Every React state library creates a JavaScript copy of state that must sync with the DOM. This is the original sin. Two truths = lies.

The solution isn't better syncing, it's refusing to duplicate. The DOM is already a perfectly good state container. All you have to do is read it.

Releasing a paper (DATAOS) and React implementation (stateless, <1KB) soon. It's the architecture behind multicardz (hyper-performing kanban on steroids, rows AND columns, 1M+ cards, sub second searches, perfect lighthouse scores, zero state sync bugs). Because there's no state to sync.

chwzr 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Sounds interesting, do you have any links to these projects? Could not find multicardz when searching

adamzwasserman 27 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

I am dark at the moment.

I am doing final testing, packaging, integrating strip, etc. My target was before end of month. If I work hard I just might make it.

I'm releasing a bunch of things at once: 1. multicardz.com 2. a paper on using DOM as single source of user state dataos.software 3. an OSS repo of hyper performant implementation of that for React (stateless.software) 4. an OSS repo that might best be described as Tailwind for frontend behavior. (genX.software)

they are all somewhat interconnected

croes 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45812308

adamzwasserman 27 minutes ago | parent [-]

Yep!

afiori 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

JSON schema is nice overall* but every software only supports ancient versions like draft 4

*even if I would prefer more transformation/conversion features that would bring it to more more a parser rather than only a validator

ether_at_cpan an hour ago | parent [-]

Not really true? There are lots of validators supporting the most recent version: https://json-schema.org/tools?query=&sortBy=name&sortOrder=a...