Yes, but look at the data. The algorithm was buggy because the input data is a nightmare. If the data didn't look like that, it's very unlikely the bug(s) would have ever existed.
ADEXP sounds like the universal data standard you want then. The UK just has an existing NATS that cannot understand it without transformation by this problematic algorithm. So the significant part of your suggestion might be to elide the NATS specific processing and upgrade NATS to use ADEXP directly.
Using a JSON format changes nothing. Just adds a few more characters to the text representation.
No change at all? I find that hard to believe. There's also a data design problem here, but the structure of JSON would aid in, not subtract from, that process.
The question at hand is: "heavily structured data vs. a blob of text as input into a complex algorithm, which one is preferred?"
Unless you're lying, you'd choose the former given the option.
The issue is using both ADEXP and ICAO4444 waypoints, and doing so in a sloppy way. For the waypoint lists, there is no issue with structurelessness -- the fact that they're lists is pretty obvious, even in the existing formats. Adding some ["",] would not have helped the specific problem, as the relevant structure was already perfectly clear to the implementers. I am not lying when I say the bug would have been equally likely in a JSON format in this specific case.
Now I'm wigging out to the idea of how the act of overcoming the inertia of the existing system just to migrate to JSON would spawn thousands of bugs on its own — many life-threatening, surely.
To me and XML-ified this would look more nightmarish than the status quo... it's just brief, space separated and \n terminated ASCII. No need to overcomplicate things this simple.
> The algorithm was buggy because the input data is a nightmare.
No, the algorithm was "buggy" because it didn't account for the entry to and exit points from the UK to have the same designation because they're supposed to be geographically distant (they were 4000Nm apart!) and the UK ain't that big.
