I know everyone is saying this is an oversimplification and just another person rushing to create a library etc, etc. But the fact of the matter is if you ask

I know everyone is saying this is an oversimplification and just another person rushing to create a library etc, etc. But the fact of the matter is if you ask any Java developer who has dealt with JSONObject they'd probably want to use this. And that says something. Why can't I make a contract with my JSON parser. Saying: look, last time there was a 200 OK response all of these fields were there. I promise, they'll be there next time too. I don't need to try { get field } catch {} every single time. The best way around this currently is to hope that the API has a client library, but that just means that every API maintainer now has to write my Java for me too. I'm not sure what the solution looks like, but I want a modern Java JSON parser that understands how the API landscape looks today. This extends to other languages that are static typed and have exceptions as well. Edit: for the record OP is Tim Bray who invented the XML spec, so he has some experience with traversing documents.