We've spent like 10 years trying to fill in gaps left when we all decided to hate XML. JSON is great as a lightweight DIF between trusted partners. If you care about maintenance and safety, XML with XSD is rock solid.
YAML: probably not so great after all (2017)
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Re: YAML: probably not so great after all (2017)
#12We've spent like 10 years trying to fill in gaps left when we all decided to hate XML. JSON is great as a lightweight DIF between trusted partners. If you care about maintenance and safety, XML with XSD is rock solid.
XML is in that odd middle-ground where it's usually human-readable, but also a huge pain in the ass to write. It's great at what it was intended for, as a data interchange format. For a general-purpose human-writable structured data format, I guess the ugly nonstandard hack that is "JSON with comments" is probably good. It's certainly faster to parse than YAML.
As much as there is a lot to not like about YAML, it is the easiest one for humans to consistently write in my experience.
Re: YAML: probably not so great after all (2017)
#13We've spent like 10 years trying to fill in gaps left when we all decided to hate XML. JSON is great as a lightweight DIF between trusted partners. If you care about maintenance and safety, XML with XSD is rock solid.
Re: YAML: probably not so great after all (2017)
#14We've spent like 10 years trying to fill in gaps left when we all decided to hate XML. JSON is great as a lightweight DIF between trusted partners. If you care about maintenance and safety, XML with XSD is rock solid.
Re: YAML: probably not so great after all (2017)
#15Re: YAML: probably not so great after all (2017)
#16I keep configuration in EDN, which avoids all of the problems described in the article and has other advantages, too.
Re: YAML: probably not so great after all (2017)
#17Re: YAML: probably not so great after all (2017)
#18We've spent like 10 years trying to fill in gaps left when we all decided to hate XML. JSON is great as a lightweight DIF between trusted partners. If you care about maintenance and safety, XML with XSD is rock solid.
My biggest complaint with JSON is the lack of support for comments. For that reason, it's hard to take it seriously for human-maintained configurations.
Re: YAML: probably not so great after all (2017)
#19I agree with some of the author's points but the "surprising behaviour" section is odd. For example, why would you expect `3.5.3` to be parsed as a number? How could that be parsed as a number?
Re: YAML: probably not so great after all (2017)
#20With YAML I can never remember what's an object versus a list, string, or number, nor am I ever able to add new stuff to a YAML file and get it to parse correctly without first looking up the spec. And it's impossible to see where large objects start and end. In contrast, JSON is super intuitive and basically self documenting. The only real quirks are that you need to use double quotes, and objects can't have a trail…
Personally I've found the exact opposite when dealing with 'normal' people. Most people can get basic YAML, but unless they're a programmers (or at least know how to program) most people fail miserably at writing JSON by hand.