[mixedCase]

>...and JSON, of all things. Every aspect of systemd which I've worked with seems to be full of sprawling complexity and overengineering

boolean, number, string, array, object, null

Sounds simple to me.

[lokedhs]

Please tell me what you'll end up with if you encode and then decode the number 1E12 using two different JSON implementations. Check the spec, and then tell me if it's simple.

[zeveb]

Does the JSON number type permit me to store the number 123,456,789,098,765,432,123,456,789,098,765,432,123? When I read it in with a parser, what integer value will my code see?

This is not an academic question: large integers are common, for example, as cryptographic keys.