Actually I bet there are a ton of people using JSON that don't have a c compiler. The technologies are spaces by several decades and I would imagine the majority of JSON people are using much higher level languages than c.
If I want to munge JSON I find it easier to do so in python, just convert it back to data structures and manipulate them and serialized it back to JSON.
I would usually use some other language with a JSON library as well, but this utility is conveniently one-function, after Unix fashion. I like composability. Also, a C compiler is usually on hand whether you use it or not; even if none is, they’re not exactly hard to obtain.
this intrigues me. while the widespread use of JSON as JSON is perhaps what differentiates it from what i'm about to describe i propose that the concept is an inevitable or obvious means of data representation/manipulation. As an arguably irrelevant anecdote to support this proposition I submit that prior to my personal introduction to the existence of JSON I was organizing data in strings and in txt files in a format nearly identical to basic JSON and writing simple functions to essentially do the same thing. I submit that I am not special or particularly clever and therefore the baller-coders that cometh before me certainly had to have their own types of crap like this. If i didn't have a tablet in class i probably would have had their names in my notes, but i digress.
tl;dr - While the advent of JSON's incarnation and that of C are several decades apart the underlying concepts are not.
tl;dr;dr - just realized your second sentence kinda says this.
