There are formats that fall between unrestricted JSON and strict predefined schemas like Protobufs or Thrift. I have used MessagePack for internal APIs and mes

There are formats that fall between unrestricted JSON and strict predefined schemas like Protobufs or Thrift. I have used MessagePack for internal APIs and message queues where JSON was too slow but we still wanted a self-describing format. You can decode msgpack for debugging without needing the original definition (there is none), unlike a fixed schema format. No affiliation, just satisfied user. http://msgpack.org/index.html http://msgpack.org/index.html