this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2023
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[–] [email protected] 27 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It isn't "bad", as it does have a purpose. It's just fucking annoying to work with.

https://docs.platform.sh/learn/overview/yaml/what-is-yaml.html

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago (3 children)

How's it annoying? It's easier to edit by hand than json as it allows for comments and there's no trailing comma errors. I prefer it any day over json.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago

There’s a lot of foot guns in YAML. The specification is way more complicated with hidden obscurities. JSON specification is just 5 diagrams. YAML speciation on the other hand is an 86 page pdf, so there’s more room for nasty surprises (which is not a thing you want in configuration files).

I’ve also seen many people struggle more than they need to with the yaml indentation.

I think the only upside to yaml is that it allows for comments, but other than that JSON all the way.

https://ruudvanasseldonk.com/2023/01/11/the-yaml-document-from-hell

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The fact that it allows comments is really, really handy. I used to be a JSON advocate until I realized this one useful piece of info.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, such a simple, but still killer feature. Really sad that JSON doesn't support them.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I wonder how you'd even implement that. Like maybe {! At the beginning.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Most comment-aware JSON parsers I've seen just use standard // to delineate comment lines.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

They make sense.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

It's just another syntax to learn. For someone who already has their head crammed full of a bunch of other syntaxes over the years, I didn't want to learn a new one. YAML has kind of forced it's way in anyways though.