JSON stands for JavaScript object notation. It is a data-interchange format that has become very popular with web applications. Although important by itself, a data format is better understood inside a context or ecosystem. This is why, before explaining JSON, the first three chapters of this book introduce JavaScript in general and JavaScript’s string manipulation in particular.

Chapter 4 formally introduces JSON and explains how it transcended JavaScript to become a de facto data-interchange standard across multiple programming languages.

Chapters 5 and 6 explain, in detail, how to create JSON from JavaScript’s internal data structures and objects and how to parse JSON to recreate JavaScript’s internal structures and objects.

The next eight chapters place JSON in the broader context of libraries, software, and web applications. In chapter 7 we learn about two methods to store and persist information in the client side of web applications, namely cookies and web storage.

In chapter 8, we learn how to exchange data between the client and the server. We go over the structure of hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) from the application perspective: the possible requests and their qualifiers. Going one step further, chapter 8 also covers Ajax, or how to exchange data without having to do full-page refreshes.

To avoid malicious code, same-origin policy (SOP) was introduced at the same time as JavaScript. Chapter 9 is about SOP, how it affects exchanges among different origins, and how to leverage “a couple of loopholes” to circumvent SOP and facilitate cross-origin requests.

Chapter 10 is about downloading tools that will allow the reader to simulate a web server and how to have said server up and running so that we can experience playing with JSON from the server side. Chapters 11 and 12 leverage the server created in chapter 10, each with one example of how to persist data on the server side. Chapter 11 teaches us how to create a simple JSON database, while chapter 12 introduces CouchDB, a database that uses JSON to store documents and regular HTTP for its application programming interface (API).

Chapter 13 covers the intricacies of handlebars, and chapter 14, the last one, puts it all together with a practical project.

The book is well organized and most chapters end with a summary that includes a bullet list with the key points of that chapter. Once one overcomes the shock of some very disconcerting typographical errors and grammar issues (such as “The first … Whereas the ladder” (p. 46) and “supply informative information” (p. 131)), we are in for a very fun read. To reinforce the concepts introduced, the author uses many examples that are usually well placed and explained in detail.

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