[cabalamat]

> integer is also ambiguous, did you mean signed or unsigned, 32 or 64 bit

These are all integers. There only needs to be one integer type for all of: 0 6 -6 8000000000000000000000. Python gets this right.

[jerf]

Now 90%+ of the programming language communities have a bar to implement your specification, because they have to emit a weird type out of the deserializations that will break code in weird ways, and in the case of static languages, you may have created a deserialization format that always emits BigInts (several words of memory and possible a mandatory indirection based on implementation) and will thus be unable to compete on the benchmarks against the serialization formats that specified integer sizes. And your serialization format is that much closer to withering on the vine with no usage.

Or you can go the JSON route, mumble your way through the numbers spec, let every language do its own thing, and tell the handful of people seriously interested in moving integers too large to be precisely specified by a 64-bit float to encode as strings or something and stop worrying everyone else with the complexity....

[thaumasiotes]

> in the case of static languages, you may have created a deserialization format that always emits BigInts

I don't follow this one. If your language, static or otherwise, is capable of turning this JSON:

    "100"

into a string, and this:

    100

into a number of whatever type, then it's also capable of turning this hypothetical input:

    100

into one type of integer, and this:

    100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

into another type of integer.