In explaining the choice of JSON as the description language for state machines Tim Bray briefly said, "I couldn't find a good reason not to express it as JSON

In explaining the choice of JSON as the description language for state machines Tim Bray briefly said, "I couldn't find a good reason not to express it as JSON and in this day and age, you need a good reason for it to not be JSON." He also mentioned that because it was a formally specified syntax, you could, should you choose to, build other more convenient syntaxes that reduce to it. It won't surprise me to see that happen fairly quickly.