Maximally Consumable Data

Goal: maximize the consumability of data.

Data can be formatted in a number of different ways. A data format may be well suited for one task, but not another; whereas a second data format may be well suited for the later task but not the former.

Thus, to create maximally consumable data, format your data in several ways. Here's my recommendation:

List of Consumable Items

• XHTML Version: format your data using XHTML. That will make your data consumable by browsers, and a variety of other devices.
• XML Version: format your data using XML. That will make your data consumable by machines.
• JSON Version: format your data using JSON. That will make your data consumable by JavaScript and Ajax applications. I wrote a short article that explains why JSON is well suited for JavaScript/Ajax applications: Why JSON is Important to You!

Example - Maximally Consumable U.S. States Data

I collected data about the U.S. states: name, capital, and the latitude and longitude of each capital. I want to maximize the consumability of this data, so I formatted the data in three different ways:

• XHTML Version: Here is the XHTML version of the U.S. States data.
• XML Version: Here is the XML version of the U.S. States data.
• JSON Version: Here is an XHTML document that dynamically pulls in JSON-formatted U.S. States data (when you click on the link). Here is the U.S. States data formatted as JSON.

Tags

• JSON
• JavaScript
• Ajax
• XML