Common JSON patterns in Haskell, Rust, and TypeScript

A lot of web development is transforming JSON one way or another. In TypeScript/JavaScript, this is straightforward, since JSON is built into the language. But can we also achieve good ergonomics in Haskell and Rust?

Dear reader, I am glad you asked! 🙌

The comparisons we will see are not meant to show if one approach is better than another. Instead, it is intended to be a reference to become familiar with common patterns across multiple languages. Throughout this post, we will utilize several tools and libraries.

The core of working with JSON in Haskell and Rust is covered by:

  • Aeson: a Haskell JSON serialization/deserialization library1.
  • Serde: a Rust JSON serialization/deserialization library.

The ergonomics is then improved in Haskell by grabbing one of the following options2:

We’ll go through typical use-cases seen in TypeScript/JavaScript codebases, and see how we can achieve the same in Haskell and Rust.

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