The JSON Saga

1
The JSON Saga

• Douglas Crockford
• Yahoo! Inc.

2
I am a heretic.

• You have been warned.

3
I Discovered JSON

• I do not claim to have invented JSON. It already
  existed in nature.
• I do not claim to have been the first to discover
  it.
• I gave it a specification and a little website.
• The rest happened by itself.

4
2001
5
State Software
6
The Very First JSON MessageApril 2001

• lthtmlgtltheadgtltscriptgt
• document.domain 'fudco.com'
• parent.session.receive(
• to"session", do"test", text"Hello
  world"
• )
• lt/scriptgtlt/headgtlt/htmlgt

7
The Very First JSON MessageApril 2001

• lthtmlgtltheadgtltscriptgt
• document.domain 'fudco.com'
• parent.session.receive(
• to"session", do"test", text"Hello
  world"
• )
• lt/scriptgtlt/headgtlt/htmlgt

8
The Very First JSON MessageApril 2001

• lthtmlgtltheadgtltscriptgt
• document.domain 'fudco.com'
• parent.session.receive(
• to"session", do"test", text"Hello
  world"
• )
• lt/scriptgtlt/headgtlt/htmlgt

9
The Very First JSON MessageApril 2001

• lthtmlgtltheadgtltscriptgt
• document.domain 'fudco.com'
• parent.session.receive(
• to"session", do"test", text"Hello
  world"
• )
• lt/scriptgtlt/headgtlt/htmlgt

10
The Very First JSON MessageApril 2001

• lthtmlgtltheadgtltscriptgt
• document.domain 'fudco.com'
• parent.session.receive(
• to"session", do"test", text"Hello
  world"
• )
• lt/scriptgtlt/headgtlt/htmlgt

11
The Very First JSON MessageApril 2001

• lthtmlgtltheadgtltscriptgt
• document.domain 'fudco.com'
• parent.session.receive(
• to"session", do"test", text"Hello
  world"
• )
• lt/scriptgtlt/headgtlt/htmlgt

12
The unquoted name problem

• ES3 has a wack reserved word policy.
• Reserved words must be quoted.
• I did not want to put the list of reserved words
  in the JSON spec, so...
• All keys must be quoted.
• It significantly simplified JSON.
• This conforms to Python.

13
Nested HTML

• lthtmlgtltheadgtltscriptgt
• document.domain 'fudco.com'
• parent.session.receive(
• "to""session", "do""test",
  "text""lt/scriptgt"
• )
• lt/scriptgtlt/headgtlt/htmlgt

14
Nested HTML

• lthtmlgtltheadgtltscriptgt
• document.domain 'fudco.com'
• parent.session.receive(
• "to""session", "do""test",
  "text""lt\/scriptgt"
• )
• lt/scriptgtlt/headgtlt/htmlgt

15
JSML

• JavaScript Message Language

16
JSON

• JavaScript Object Notation

17
JSON was really useful

• Browser/server communication.
• Interserver communication.
• JSON database.

18
Our customers said