Fixing JSON

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?

Because using certain keys could break your JavaScript (and JSON was designed to be a subset), like

    { delete: "me" }

If you don't want to keep a list of known keywords around, just insisting on quotes is the easier way.

[EDIT: See also this YouTube video, where Douglas Crockford explains it himself: https://youtu.be/-C-JoyNuQJs?t=5m]

Unquoted keywords are valid ES5.1 object properties.

    alert(JSON.stringify({delete: "me", for: 1, var: 2}));

results in:

    {"delete":"me","for":1,"var":2}

The only browser it does not work in is IE8 and earlier.