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Comment by bawolff | Hacker News Reader

As much as i like this (yaml goes way too far, but trailing commas and comments would make json much nicer. I actually think this spec goes too far with single quotes) i hate that it is named json5. I think its unethical to imply you are the next version of something if you don't have the blessing of the original author.

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Even when the original author said it was "discovered"?

JSON5 is closer to "javascript object notation" than JSON itself. It's partly an update and partly a removal of arbitrary restrictions.

Except that JSON is a valid JavaScript object, and JSON5 is not.

Why is it not? My understanding is that it is a valid ES5 and forward object.

Unless there's a direct lie in the description of JSON5 ("subset of ECMAScript"), JSON5 objects are valid JS objects.

Can you provide an example?

I think the name just means that it sits in-between JSON and ES5 (i.e., it's a superset of JSON and subset of ES5).

edit: well as this comment thread indicates, the name is pretty confusing for everyone :)

The parser for tsconfig.json (typscript.parseConfigFileTextToJson(fileName, jsonText) or parseJsonText) seems to be what you want; I wonder if there is a name for that format.

I think JSONC is the term for json with comments and trailing commas

Could also be construed as paying homage, though. I think the number 5 here is a reference to congruence with ECMA Script 5 rather than to imply a version of JSON.

Single quotes are useful for string contents containing many double quotes (e.g. XML).

Lots of things are useful. I think json has been succesful largely because it preferred minimalism over usefulness.

It's not a binary choice. I don't think if Crockford chose a slightly larger subset of JavaScript for JSON (such as JSON5), it would hurt its adoption.

I always thought that the name JSON5 pretends to be nothing more than a pun on Michael Jackson's original band, The Jackson 5. It sounds too similar!

If it didn't originate from that, what else?

The project description describes it as json plus syntax from emcascript 5.1 (commonly called ES5) [the official name of javascript is emcascript]. I imagine that is where the name comes from.

Although it doesn't really make sense since most of the stuff they add predates ES5.

Yes, that is where the name comes from.

I assumed it was a play on HTML5 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Ha. There is no way that’s what it means unless you read that somewhere.

I agree with the others that ES5 is likely where it came from, but my mind also jumped to The Jackson 5.

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