Spring GDS 25th Anniversary
A logistics company that ships to 190 countries built something to ship to itself.
JSON
What is JSON?
JSON, short for JavaScript Object Notation, is a lightweight, text-based format for storing and exchanging structured data. It is readable by humans, easy for machines to parse, and tied to no single language, which is why it became the default way data moves across the web.
JSON represents data as key-value pairs grouped into objects, written inside curly braces, and as ordered lists called arrays, written inside square brackets. Values can be strings, numbers, booleans, null, other objects, or other arrays, so complex nested structures stay clear and compact. When a weather app asks an API for tomorrow's forecast, what comes back is almost always JSON: a tidy object with temperature, conditions, and an array of hourly readings the app can render directly. Originally derived from JavaScript syntax, JSON is now supported natively or through standard libraries in nearly every programming language in use.
Its simplicity is what won. In the mid-2000s, JSON overtook XML as the preferred format for web APIs because it carried the same data with far less ceremony, and it has held that position since. Today it sits at the center of REST APIs, NoSQL databases like MongoDB, configuration files, and the messages services pass between each other in microservice architectures.
JSON at Dallonses
JSON runs through almost everything we build. It is the shape of the data our APIs return, the format our configuration lives in, and the contract that lets a frontend and a backend agree on what a piece of content actually looks like. When we design an API for a client, the JSON it speaks is something we plan deliberately, because a clean, predictable data shape makes every layer above it simpler to build and easier to change later.
We have watched messy data formats slow whole projects down, so we treat schema and structure as decisions worth making early. Get the JSON right and the rest of the system has solid ground to stand on. That is the kind of unglamorous groundwork that keeps a product fast to extend long after launch.
Building something where the data has to be clean from day one? That is exactly our kind of problem.
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