title: Should I return an array instead of individual values?
body: <p>We have a C# WebAPI that interacts with a ReactJS frontend, using REST and JSON. We stumbled upon a situation where we need to send a considerable amount of data from the server to the client.</p>
  <p>The format is basically:</p>
  <pre><code>[
      {
          id: 1,
          description: &quot;description for Id 1&quot;,
          parentId: 1
      },
      {
          id: 2,
          description: &quot;description for Id 2&quot;,
          parentId: 1
      },
      {
          id: 3,
          description: &quot;description for Id 3&quot;,
          parentId: 2
      },
     ......
  ]
  </code></pre>
  <p>Our frontend dev is trying to convince me to use an array like this instead:</p>
  <pre><code>[
      [1, 'description for Id 1', 1],
      [2, 'description for Id 2', 1],
      [3, 'description for Id 3', 2],
      ....
  ]
  </code></pre>
  <p>This of course makes the JSON a bit more lightweight, but I argue that this is a unnecessary hack that destroys the logic and descriptiveness of the format.</p>
  <p>My question is:</p>
  <p>Is it a bad practice? Does this break the &quot;expected&quot; contract between server and client? Or is it a normal optimization practice?</p>
  <p>P.S.: Before writing this question, I was in doubt if this would be closed as a &quot;primary opinion based question&quot;, but I do not believe this to be the case.</p>