AIM INTERVIEWS

Who are you?

I am Douglas Crockford, an American Programmer.

You famously say you didn't invent JSON, you discovered it. Why did you decide to formalize and publish the standard data format for JSON? Was there any inspiration?

There were two brilliant languages, Lisp and Rebol, that had a portable representation of data structures in their syntax. My knowledge of those languages helped me realize that JavaScript did that too. I believe that I was not the first to discover that.

In 2001 I founded a company to build servers and libraries for single page web applications. At the time, XML had not been disgraced yet and was being required by standards and conventions as the universal data format. We instead chose a JavaScript subset. Some of our potential customers refused it because it was not a standard. So out of necessity, I purchased JSON.org and declared that JSON was a standard. The world ultimately agreed.

You've been an important contributor to the early Javascript ecosystem, creating tools like JSLint and JSMin. At the time, did you foresee Javascript being ubiquitous across web development, even at large companies? Is there anything you find surprising about the direction of the modern web stack?

My first impression of JavaScript was that it was the stupidest thing I ever saw. I took another look at it in 2000 and realized that there was brilliance in it. At that time, it was widely believed that the WWW had run its course and was about to be superseded by something better: An application delivery system would replace the document delivery system. Microsoft's dotnet was one of the many contenders. The browser won because it had JavaScript in it which allowed it to act like an application delivery system. So we are stuck with the browser, at least for now. Even the large companies that bet against the web are doing lots of JavaScript now. As Brendan Eich says, always bet on JavaScript.

The thing that surprises me about the modern web stack is the crazy popularity of bloatware. We all know the benefits of efficiency, but the popular frameworks are big, slow, and unnecessary.

If you had unlimited resources (time, money, etc.), how would you spend your time?

I would invest in good things. For example, I would invest in Aptera and help them bring their solar electric cars to market.

Then I would dig a railroad tunnel from Santa Clarita to Grapevine and gift it to the State of California.

Then I would beat Elon to Mars. I don't think there is much point in going to Mars, but I would like to get there first. Just because.

Are there any people or projects you particularly admire today?

I have reached a point in my career where I no longer pay attention to what other people are doing.

What's a message you have for the world?

Stop eating meat and fish. The ecological effects are disastrous. Plants have a much smaller impact.