Proposal to extend JSON with sum types (variants)

Proposal to extend JSON with sum types (variants) Note: An LLM was not used in writing this article. A small syntactical addition that I propose to add to JSON is variants. It looks like this: #"succeeded" #"failed"("Problem flerbing the fobnicator.") #"loading"({ "remaining": 3, "completed": 7 }) [ #"foo", #"bar"(1), #"boz"("Ok!") ] I trust that the syntax is intuitive and follows norms that a hashtag is a way of labelling something. The grammar is simply: root ::= string | number | ... | object | variant variant ::= "#" string variant-arg? variant-arg ::= "(" root ")" It would be more convenient without the quotes, but JSON is primarily a transfer format and secondarily a human readable format. The latter is what JSON5 is for. Additionally, it’s faster to crunch through JSON’s explicitly delimited string literals than more elaborate rules. I think this syntax gives a good balance of intention and practicality. Sum types exist nicely in XML and static languages (Rust, Haskell), and…