Although YML is sometimes used as a data exchange format, its biggest use case is in configuration files. So far, you’ve only seen examples of JSON used with shallow (or simple) objects.

For example, if a hacker inserts non-JSON code into a string ... XML is more difficult to manage than JSON format. Converting XML into a JavaScript object takes up to tens or hundreds more lines of ...

Thanks again! That's really weird that they use a custom string format instead of actual JSON for the drop-down items. I think the point of the "return Json(object);" in an MVC action is to ...