[Patient0]

JSON is explicitly not designed to be hand-editable. Hence, for example, no comments.

It's just meant to be human readable.

If you want human editable "json", use Yaml: http://www.yaml.org/ (it's a superset of Json that adds comments, linking etc.)

[hrjet]

I find HOCON better than YAML:

https://github.com/typesafehub/config/blob/master/HOCON.md

[oneeyedpigeon]

How is YAML a superset of JSON? Do you mean 'conceptually'?

[turnip1979]

To be specific, JSON syntax is a subset of YAML version 1.2.

However, I hate YAML with a passion. It is worse than XML in my books. I can usually read JSON fine. I can also read XML in many cases. For the life of me, I just can't read YAML. It has something to do with "-", line indentation and different ways of writing lists.

Of course, someone will say YAML is technically better ...

[ctb_mg]

Same here, it is very difficult for me to tell levels of nested structures in yaml. Though I'm sure if I sat down and read up on it I could force it into my brain. But shouldn't it be intuitive to read without that?

[snogglethorpe]

Precisely.

Python has exactly the same problem -- control-structure nesting quickly gets confusing and hard to read beyond a certain (fairly small) size -- but at least with python, you have the option of splitting off stuff into separate functions to limit the amount of nesting and size of blocks.

[buster]

Different for me, i would prefer YAML over XML or JSON

[turnip1979]

Do you use your naked eyes or do you have any tool recommendations? I don't see YAML going away so I'd better deal :)

[_delirium]

It's technically true because YAML includes an alternate "inline style" that lets you write objects in JSON syntax. Therefore any JSON object is a valid YAML object as well. But, not an idiomatically written YAML object, since writing YAML using only inline style is unusual.

[icebraining]

No, it is a superset. Every JSON document is a valid YAML document.