JSON was created at a time when most web communication was done by sending XML over browser plugins such as Java or Flash. This was cumbersome and made the exchanged information quite bloated. Douglas Crockford, the creator of JSLint and author of the famous JavaScript: The Good Parts, decided in the early 2000s that it was time for a lightweight format that was easily integrated with JavaScript. He oriented himself on a small subset of JavaScript, namely the way it defined objects, and extended it a little bit to form the JavaScript Object Notation or JSON. Yes, you've read that right; JSON is not a subset of JavaScript, as it accepts things that JavaScript doesn't. You can read more about that at http://timelessrepo.com/json-isnt-a-javascript-subset.
Getting ready
The sad irony of the story is that today we have gone full-circle: our best practices for web development include a labyrinth of task runners, frameworks, and transpilers, which are all quite nice in theory...
