[JulianMorrison]

jq is a C program.

In theory a truly specific program could work better. In practise, the broad scope of jq allows you to discover the operations you need and respond to changes in requirements without being locked into custom code, and any given programmer probably couldn't do the same job better.

[cryptonector]

jq is a C program, yes, but jq programs are interpreted. Because jq is a dynamically-typed language, it wouldn't be easy to compile it to object code that would run too much faster than the byte-interpreted version (though it would still run faster).

As you say, jq's power is that it is an expressive language, and it's much much easier to write jq programs that work than it is to write C/C++ programs as needed that do the same or similar work.

[JulianMorrison]

The interpreted language is just the setup phase for a pipeline of compiled-in data transformations.

[cryptonector]

I don't understand this statement. Keep in mind I'm a jq maintainer.