Developer Guides
In-depth technical guides on JSON, regular expressions, Git diffs, JWT tokens, and more — written for working software engineers.
JSON vs XML: When to Use Each
JSON has won the web API wars, but XML still dominates in many enterprise and document contexts. Here's a practical guide to choosing the right format.
JSON Schema: The Missing Layer of Your API Contracts
Most APIs document what their JSON responses look like but never enforce it. JSON Schema is the solution most teams ignore — until a renamed field breaks production.
Debugging Malformed JSON: The Error Messages Are Lying to You
JSON parse errors tell you where the parser failed, not where the author made the mistake. Here is every common JSON mistake and how to find it fast.
JSON vs YAML: Stop Picking the Wrong One for the Wrong Job
The JSON vs YAML debate is settled but most teams still get it wrong. YAML for human-written config, JSON for machine-generated data — and here's why YAML's design decisions are genuinely terrible.
REST API JSON Design Is Full of Bad Habits — Here Is What Good Looks Like
After reviewing thousands of API responses, the patterns that make APIs easy to consume are clear. Consistent naming, proper error formats, ISO dates, and the crime of returning 200 OK with success: false.
JSON Minification vs Compression: You Are Optimizing the Wrong Thing
Teams spend time minifying JSON responses when they should be enabling gzip compression. The numbers show why — and when minification actually does matter.
JSON.parse and JSON.stringify Have Landmines — Here Is Every One of Them
JSON.stringify drops undefined values silently, fails on circular references, and converts Dates to strings without reversing them. Here is every gotcha documented.
JSON Patch: The Right Way to Update API Resources Partially
Most APIs handle partial updates wrong. JSON Patch (RFC 6902) is the standardized solution that almost nobody uses — but should. Here is how and why.
JSON Is Overused. Here Is When You Should Switch to Something Better
JSON is the duct tape of data formats: it works everywhere and is the wrong choice more often than developers admit. Here are the thresholds where alternatives win.
JSON Serialization Is Your API's Hidden Bottleneck
In high-throughput APIs, JSON serialization takes meaningful CPU time that most developers never measure. Here are benchmarks, faster alternatives, and when to switch.