Software Engineering Stories

If you are a Web developer you will have to handle JSON strings, for developing, debugging and testing applications and APIs. During theses processes you will also have to use JSON strings that are copied for a HTTP sniffing/dumping tool (e.g. the developer tools of your browser) to analyse them, present them or share them. In that case, you will need to beautify them so that they become human friendly and readable. How do you do that fast and efficiently? OK, there may be a trillion different ways, and almost all IDEs that have some respect for themselves provide such JSON formatting functionality. But IDEs are heavy, and you typically will not create a new file to copy and paste the JSON string to beautify it and then discard it. I've seen many people resorting to "online" formatting tools (i.e. javascript-based formatters), but do you really need to do that (plus, you may be "sharing" you data without realizing it)? Notepad++ to the rescue again!  ...