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I’m nearly ready to cut a 1.0 version of nanojson. I spent some time merging the two writer interfaces into a single API.

String json = JsonWriter.string()
  .object()
  .array("a")
    .value(1)
    .value(2)
  .end()
  .value("b", false)
  .value("c", true)
  .end()
.close();

There’s a new convenience static for quickly converting stuff to a string as well:

String json = JsonWriter.string(object);

I suspect I may rename the close() method to something that doesn’t infer closing of the underlying stream (maybe finish() or complete()?)

You’ll find it at GitHub here.

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Apple is quickly burning my goodwill towards with these silly patent fights. Two out of three of the patents were found not to be infringing, while the last one is a software patent that basically describes the functioning of a mobile device that deals with photos.

At this point, it’s probably worth pointing out that Apple’s notification bar is pretty much a rip-off of the Android one. And you know what? I really don’t care.

Companies should be riffing off each other’s designs and improving them as they do. We’ll get a lot further than if we give one company total control over a single domain. Apple has taken the Android notification bar and improved it, just as Google has done with various iPhone features. Both companies have built their mobile operating systems on the prior art of thousands of other inventions from the last thirty years.

As many people have stated, patents are a monopoly to advance science and the useful arts. They are not a monopoly to advance the profits of any given company, though that may be a side-effect of their existence.

Copyright and trademark law already exist to prevent direct copying of design. Would Apple have released the iPhone in the absence of software patents? Very likely. Would the iPhone/Android rivalry shaped up the same way without software patents? Very likely.
In their current form, software patents have been hindering the progress of computing. With that in mind, I say it’s time for them to go.

Follow me on Twitter: @mmastrac

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