> You're making an interesting distinction between "JSON" and "languages based on JSON" there, which I don't.
That's basically the root cause of your misconceptions. A document format encoded in JSON is a separate format, which happens to be a subset of JSON. A byte stream can be a valid JSON document but it's broken with regards to the document format you specified. Tools like JSONPath bridge the gap between your custom document format and JSON. This is not a JSON shortcoming or design flaw.
> They're only useful when we know the structure of the data within them.
They are only useful to you because you're complaining that you still need to parse your custom format. This is not a problem with JSON or any other document format. This is only a misconception you have with regards to what you're doing.
That's basically the root cause of your misconceptions. A document format encoded in JSON is a separate format, which happens to be a subset of JSON. A byte stream can be a valid JSON document but it's broken with regards to the document format you specified. Tools like JSONPath bridge the gap between your custom document format and JSON. This is not a JSON shortcoming or design flaw.
> They're only useful when we know the structure of the data within them.
They are only useful to you because you're complaining that you still need to parse your custom format. This is not a problem with JSON or any other document format. This is only a misconception you have with regards to what you're doing.