[Json] Two Documents

[Douglas Crockford <[e-mail]>]

The confusion and controversy around this work is due to a mistake that I
made in RFC 4627. The purpose of the RFC, which is clearly indicated
in the title, was to establish a MIME type. I also gave a description of
the JSON Data Interchange Format. My mistake was in conflating the two,
putting details about the MIME type into the description of the format. My
intention was to add clarity. That obviously was not the result.

JSON is just a format. It describes a syntax of brackets and commas that
is useful in many contexts, profiles, and applications. JSON is agnostic
about all of that stuff. JSON shouldn't even care about character encoding.
Its only dependence on Unicode in the hex numbers used in the \u notation.
JSON can be encoded in ASCII or EBCDIC or even Hollerith codes. JSON can
be used in contexts where there is no character encoding at all, such as
paper documents and marble monuments.

There are uses of JSON however in which such choices matter, and where
behavior needs to be attached to or derived from the syntax. That is
important stuff, and it belongs in different documents. Such documents
will place necessary restrictions on JSON's potential. No such document
can fit all applications, which causes much of the controversy we've seen
here. One size cannot fit all. JSON the format is universal. But real
applications require reasonable restrictions.

So we should be working on at least two documents, which is something we 
have
discussed earlier. The first is The JSON Data Interchange Format, which is
a simple grammar. The second is a best practices document, which recommends
specific conventions of usage.