The main point that makes sense for me is about lack of support for comments; but JSON5 should solve this problem. I find JSON to be much more readable than al

The main point that makes sense for me is about lack of support for comments; but JSON5 should solve this problem. I find JSON to be much more readable than alternatives like YAML and much more flexible than plain key value pairs. I've been using YAML for a while with Kubernetes but I find it difficult to follow the indentation (especially if my IDE does not support guide lines)... Strictness is a good thing for config files and makes it easier to find things. Programmability in config files is generally not a good idea. Config files should be simple enough so that users with minimal technical ability can change the behavior of the system without having to know how to code. If/when JSON5 becomes mainstream and IDEs stop showing warnings about comments in JSON, I will stop using .js files for my Node.js applications and just use .json. I do think that the commenting ability is important.