I find for deeply hierarchical data that XML is much easier to read.

Emacs has pretty print JSON which makes it very easy to read. I don't find it possible, XML displayed for human consumption to be better than that.

interrsting. I find the signal/noise ratio of XML really bad.

what I really dread in XML though is that XML only has idref/id standardized, and no path references. so without tool support you can't navigate to a reference target.

which turns XML into the "binary" format for GUI tools.

> so without tool support you can't navigate to a reference target

Maybe, but XML tools are also just superior to JSON counterparts. XPath is fantastic, and so is XSD and XSLT. I also quite like the integration with .NET.

My general experience with JSON as a configuration language has been sad. It's a step back from XML in a lot of ways.

yes, XML is very mature, and fun if you have access to advanced tools.

however most oss builds on libxml which is stuck in xslt 1 and xpath 2 iirc...

I recently stumbled upon James Clark's youngest brainchild the ballerina language.

https://ballerina.io/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clark_(programmer)#Caree...