> For example, in JSON 32 is an integer, 32.0 is the real version of 32, and “32” is the string version. These distinctions are not meaningful and can be confusing to non-programmers.
Au contraire mon frere. What's the point of this data format if it's only intended to be for humans and not computers, because for computers the data type is critically important. For example, I've more than once seen the extremely ill-advised idea to treat zip code as a numeric, which completely screws your data model once you want to support zip+4 or international postal codes that contain letters.
No, because you’re pushing the choice on the applications giving them more opportunities to screw up. If your data is already typed and something is a string odds are the application will either just follow that lead or look up why the data format authors picked that type in case it’s important or relevant.
Au contraire mon frere. What's the point of this data format if it's only intended to be for humans and not computers, because for computers the data type is critically important. For example, I've more than once seen the extremely ill-advised idea to treat zip code as a numeric, which completely screws your data model once you want to support zip+4 or international postal codes that contain letters.