The Norway Problem • Hacker News Board

Re: The Norway Problem

#131

Post by joelellis » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 12:52 PM UTC

Macha wrote: post #110

Safety1stClyde wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And although officially JSON requires quoted strings, almost none of the parsers actually enforce that What programming language? I'm not familiar with those parsers, the ones I know of very much do enforce quoted strings. > you will find a huge amount of JSON out there that is not actually compliant with the official spec The parsers I use all follow the current JSON RFC specification, and I've never encountered a…

I think the point is that they accept more than the spec dictates - do your JSON parsers accept e.g. the vs code config file (JSON with comments) or JSON with unquoted keys?

The most commonly used parsers only accept valid JSON - including the one included within most JS runtimes (JSON.stringify/parse). VSCode explicitly uses a `jsonc` parser, the only difference being that it strips comments before it parses the JSON. There's also such thing as `json5`, which has a few extra features inspired by ES5. None of them are unquoted strings. I've never come across anything JSON-like with unquoted strings other than YAML, and everything not entirely compliant with the spec has a different name.

Re: The Norway Problem

#132

Post by lelanthran » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 12:53 PM UTC

atleta wrote: post #77

WalterBright wrote: post #47

> The most tragic aspect of this bug, howevere, is that it is intended behavior according to the YAML 2.0 specification. This is one of those great ideas that sadly one needs experience to realize are really bad ideas. Every new generation of programmers has to relearn it. Other bad ideas that resurface constantly: 1. implicit declaration of variables 2. don't really need a ; as a statement terminator 3. assert shoul…

I agree with the general observation, but the need for ";" ? Quite a few languages (over a few generations) have been doing fine without the semicolon. Just to mention two: python and haskell. (Yes, python has the semicolon but you'll only ever use it to put multiple statements on a single line.)

> I agree with the general observation, but the need for ";" ? Quite a few languages (over a few generations) have been doing fine without the semicolon. Just to mention two: python and haskell. (Yes, python has the semicolon but you'll only ever use it to put multiple statements on a single line.)

But then it's inconsistent and has unnecessary complexity because now there's one (or more) exceptions to the rules to remember: when the ';' is needed. And of course if you get it wrong you'll only discover it at runtime.

"Consistent applications of a general rule" is preferable to "An easier general rule but with exceptions to the rule".

Re: The Norway Problem

#133

Post by mcv » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 12:53 PM UTC

If it ignores part of the spec, I don't think "strictyaml" is the correct name here. Instead, if it interprets everything as string, perhaps "stringyaml" would have been more accurate, though I'm sure that's not as good PR.

I'm reminded of the discussion we had a few days ago about environment variables; one problem there is that env variables are always strings, and sometimes you do want different types in your config. But clearly having the system automatically interpret whether it's a string or something else is a major source of bugs. Maybe having an explicit definition of which field should be which type would help, but then you end up with the heavy-handed XML with its XSD schema.

Or you just use JSON, which is light-weight, easy to read, but unambiguous about its types. I guess there's a good reason it's so popular.

Maybe other systems like yaml and environment variables should only ever be used for strings, and not for anything else, and I suppose replacing regular yaml with 'strictyaml' could play a role there. Or cause unending confusion, because it does violate the spec.

Re: The Norway Problem

#134

Post by sergeykish » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 12:55 PM UTC

anticristi wrote: post #42

imhoguy wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had such: XML. With proper editor support it is easy. I guess it needs rediscovery /s ;)

I used XML and didn't like it: - A proper editor was never around. - Closing tags were verbose. - Attributes vs tags was confusing. - It didn't map "naturally" to common data types, like lists, maps, integers, float, etc.

You've just used XML tech as it was designed to post this comment.

XML is serialization. I hardly believe you was concerned about serialization while posting comment or thought about attributes-tags distinction.

This page utilizes request to server for multi-user editing. But it is easy to build truly serverless (like a file) document with same interface:

    data:text/html,Host: example.com

Change it, save it, done. Web handles input of lists, maps, integers, float and much more.

Re: The Norway Problem

#135

Post by exyi » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 12:55 PM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #127

I have never gotten far into a project and thought, "my config files are too verbose. I wish there were clever shorthands." Does Yaml have any sort of strict mode? I imagine I could find a linter that disallows implicit strings.

Not YAML by itself, but there are libraries that parse a YAML-like format that is typed. For example this one: https://hitchdev.com/strictyaml/. Technically, it is not compatible with the YAML spec.

Re: The Norway Problem

#136

Post by lunfard00 » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 12:55 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #80

lunfard00 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and yet I don't see anyone complain about bash which is arguably far worse than those 2. When things get hard on bash, you will start to see python scripts on CI and whole thing is complete unreadable mess

> I don't see anyone complain about bash You're not looking really hard then, but really > When things get hard on bash, you will start to see python scripts That's kinda the thing innit? Unless the system specifically only allows shell scripts (something I don't think I've ever encountered though I'm sure it exists) it's quite easy to just use something else when bash sucks, so while people will absolutely complain…

There is a lot of elitism around bash, like the "Arch btw" thing but far worse because a lot of important things depends on it.

Powershell has been working on linux for quite a while now and doesnt seem get any attention even when it has a nice IDE support and copy the good things about bash.

Re: The Norway Problem

#137

Post by bsenftner » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 12:56 PM UTC

This is such a core issue with a tool like YAML, how the hell did this program get so popular? Are there that many developers willy nilly using tools that fail in critical, silent ways, and the horde of no-nothings follows them?

Re: The Norway Problem

#138

Post by IHLayman » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 12:59 PM UTC

Reminds me of the multiple YAML bugs that have plagued Kubernetes such as https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/82296

It is interesting how the standard of any language seems to diverge due to just the implementation from different parsers.

Re: The Norway Problem

#139

Post by nightcracker » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 12:59 PM UTC

lelanthran wrote: post #132

atleta wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the general observation, but the need for ";" ? Quite a few languages (over a few generations) have been doing fine without the semicolon. Just to mention two: python and haskell. (Yes, python has the semicolon but you'll only ever use it to put multiple statements on a single line.)

> I agree with the general observation, but the need for ";" ? Quite a few languages (over a few generations) have been doing fine without the semicolon. Just to mention two: python and haskell. (Yes, python has the semicolon but you'll only ever use it to put multiple statements on a single line.) But then it's inconsistent and has unnecessary complexity because now there's one (or more) exceptions to the rules to r…

Have you ever used Python? If you did you really wouldn't be saying this. There isn't an exception. The semicolon is used to put multiple statements on a single line. That's it's only use, and that's the only time it's 'needed' - no exceptions.

Re: The Norway Problem

#140

Post by aasasd » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 1:07 PM UTC

asiachick wrote: post #115

WalterBright wrote: post #47

> The most tragic aspect of this bug, howevere, is that it is intended behavior according to the YAML 2.0 specification. This is one of those great ideas that sadly one needs experience to realize are really bad ideas. Every new generation of programmers has to relearn it. Other bad ideas that resurface constantly: 1. implicit declaration of variables 2. don't really need a ; as a statement terminator 3. assert shoul…

What do think of implicit member access (C++, Java, C#) vs explicit (python, javascript)? Is there a concrete argument one way or the other? I feel like I prefer explicit self.member = value this.member = value vs implicit member = value But clearly C++/Java/C# people are happy with implicit ... though many of them try to make it explicit by using a naming convention.

I can tell for certain that as a JS/Python man, every time I look through Java code I have to spend a bit of time when stumbling upon such access, until I remember that it's a thing in Java. Pity that Kotlin apparently inherited it.

But at least, to my knowledge, in Java these things can't turn out to be global vars. Having this ‘feature’ in JS or Python would be quite a pain in the butt.