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139 points robin_reala | 1 comments | 20 Aug 16 18:08 UTC | HN request time: 0.32s | source

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greenyoda ◴[20 Aug 16 18:17 UTC] No.12327716[source]▶

I never understood why the double quotes around property names are mandatory. For example, in JavaScript, I can write

    { foo: 1, bar: 2 }

but JSON syntax insists on

    { "foo": 1, "bar": 2 }

This makes JSON less easily readable by humans, and harder to write or edit by hand.

Anyone know why JSON was designed this way?

replies(6): >>12327762 #>>12327775 #>>12327805 #>>12327829 #>>12327836 #>>12327945 #

1. usrusr ◴[20 Aug 16 19:20 UTC] No.12327945[source]▶

>>12327716 #

JSON values low variance between different representations of logically equivalent documents. It's not a primary concern (e.g. the explicit lack of key order allows a lot of variance), but it seems to trump syntax convenience just about everywhere except whitespace. Going all unquoted-keys would also be low variance, but this would restrict keys from "any string" to "valid javascript identifiers" or something bespoke in between.

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Fixing JSON