[StavrosK]

Fields are messy because you have to check for nulls, yet JSON keys aren't messy because you have to check for nulls?

[alanfranz]

All json keys are optional, so you ALWAYS need to check for their presence or absence. Mess exists when some key is nullable and some isn't. Checking for nullability on a key that can never be null isn't extremely elegant.

[StavrosK]

Why is that a mess? I don't see the difference.