Why JSON?

Microsoft Connect site is the place where you can leave your feedback, suggestions, and wishes for Microsoft products. The most popular feature request for SQL Server is one for JSON support. It was created in June 2011 and got more than 1,100 votes. The request is still open (July 2016) and interestingly it is shown at the very top of the most voted items list, even though the second item in the list has more votes, as you can see in Figure 5.1:

Figure 5.1: Highly ranked requests for SQL Server on the Microsoft Connect site (July 2016)

What arguments are used by community members to justify the request?

• JSON is already standard, and it should be supported, similar to XML

• Other vendors support it (Oracle, PostgreSQL, and so on)

• Due to the lack of JSON support, my customers want to move from SQL Server to other database systems supporting JSON

As always with vox populi, some of the arguments and given examples represent development and business needs. Some of them, however, are very...