that's a simple solution yes, but also a verbose one. the primary appeal of json as a data exchange format is that it maps to ubiquitous types like objects/hash

that's a simple solution yes, but also a verbose one. the primary appeal of json as a data exchange format is that it maps to ubiquitous types like objects/hashmaps, arrays, strings and numbers. if you need to hint the decoder or manually perform conversions it loses a lot of appeal as a user