[traverseda]

Right, but at that point you're tying it to a universal type system.

Personally I like YAML, since you can add type-hints to data which you can use to turn simple text types into more complex types, but I can see why that standard wouldn't take off.

Most of the unix-philosophy people I know are interested in stuff like that, it just has to be implemented in a thoughtful way.

[wry_discontent]

YAML is a crime.

[traverseda]

I can see why you'd be worried about it, it's a lot more powerful than what I'd actually want for this.

But that's sort of part of the problem, no one is going to agree on a common universal data-type.