[worldsayshi]

I very much agree with your sentiment here. That's why I find Haskell lenses so fascinating. Although it's another level of challenge since it's done on a type level.

> something similar for JSON

And I've looked for this as well. Haven't really tried any solution in the trenches but this one might be interesting for you: https://github.com/mmckegg/json-query

Also, GraphQL is tangentially related.