Yeah exactly. The equivalent would be to have a JSON parser in C++ which turns a JSON file/object into a C++ object that is accessed in similar ways to other ty

Yeah exactly. The equivalent would be to have a JSON parser in C++ which turns a JSON file/object into a C++ object that is accessed in similar ways to other typical C++ objects. So: {"key": value"} becomes json->key = "value" rather than json["key"]. In this library I feel as if they've used operator overloading to emulate the way JSON is used in other languages, rather than making the JSON feel like a first class C++ citizen so to speak.