JSON is an improvement overall even though there are certainly issues. It is easier to read, easier to parse, and usually fewer bytes for the same data. Validation schema can be provided by JSON Schema [1]. The lack of date type and comments is annoying, but not that big of a deal. I think parsing and reading are far more important to get right which XML didn't.
> but not that big of a deal. I think parsing and reading are far more important to get right which XML didn't.
...in your opinion, for your use cases. I think XML is eminently more readable due to the fact that it has named types and also because I never have to read the following and figure out what goes where:
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JSON is great for sending data to Javascript though and I'm pretty sure that's the only reason anyone is using it.
1. http://json-schema.org/