Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Pkl, a Programming Language for Configuration

pkl-lang.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 598 posts

Re: Pkl, a Programming Language for Configuration

#411

Post by Fischgericht »

afavour wrote: post #405
Fischgericht wrote: post #401

25 years ago pretty much every program had a GUI to do the configuration. With help texts. On Windows, programs then either saved stuff into an ini file or the windows registry, both you could also edit manually. Today we have a programming language coming as a 87 MB binary to create config files. And to run that programming language you need to manually crate a ... config file. So what we are missing now is a 500GB…

That strikes me as a very uncurious perspective. There’s absolutely nothing that could be improved about configuration files? An 87MB binary feels like a very arbitrary measure of worthiness.

ONE actual standard that everyone uses would be fine. For non-tree (nested) configurations, an ini file would do. It's a standard that worked well in 1990, and still does today.

For nested data, it doesn't matter to me if it's JSON, YAML, TOML or whatever. Just agree on ONE format.

TOML also is a good example of "creating problems instead of solutions": They deliberately (!) broke compatibility to the INI format due to "I can't stand unquoted strings". Yeah, emotional feelings about CONFIG FILE FORMATS.

And again: If your config files are so complex, how about just creating a TUI/GUI so the user can configure your program in an accessible fashion?

Anyway, yes, there is something that can be improved: Create a standard instead of adding another layer of complexity for something that should be very simple in the first place.

Yes, binary size may feel arbitrary, but it often gives a hint about the hammer's size.

Re: Pkl, a Programming Language for Configuration

#412

Post by Aeolun »

kistanod wrote: post #409

My team at Apple is very heavy on pcl + k8s configs. It's a very useful tool. Definitely recommend everyone to get familiar with it.

I kind of feel that if your base is kubernetes (and especially helm) YAML soup, basically everything looks like a good alternative.

Re: Pkl, a Programming Language for Configuration

#413

Post by Fischgericht »

n42 wrote: post #406
Fischgericht wrote: post #401

25 years ago pretty much every program had a GUI to do the configuration. With help texts. On Windows, programs then either saved stuff into an ini file or the windows registry, both you could also edit manually. Today we have a programming language coming as a 87 MB binary to create config files. And to run that programming language you need to manually crate a ... config file. So what we are missing now is a 500GB…

Yes, the windows registry, the peak of our craft. No need to innovate, this one’s solved, wrap it up and move on Try taking more time to consider the problems you don’t have that others do, instead of writing anything off that doesn’t make sense to you (and simultaneously gatekeeping an entire industry)

Creating complex layers upon layers just to "solve" a very simple problem is not innovation. It's shittification.

Re: Pkl, a Programming Language for Configuration

#414

Post by ivlad »

Fischgericht wrote: post #401

25 years ago pretty much every program had a GUI to do the configuration. With help texts. On Windows, programs then either saved stuff into an ini file or the windows registry, both you could also edit manually. Today we have a programming language coming as a 87 MB binary to create config files. And to run that programming language you need to manually crate a ... config file. So what we are missing now is a 500GB…

25 years ago admin would be responsible for one server, that they would setup and then never touch until (and sometimes after) someone hacked it.

Now people are responsible for thousands of containers, and GUI simply does not scale. And the configuration of those containers is domain-specific and/or varies enough so that you cannot write a single config file and copy it over. This is why configuration management systems first came with template engines and now require a separate tool to render the configuration.

Nobody would develop anything like that if it was not needed.

Re: Pkl, a Programming Language for Configuration

#415

Post by mbesto »

Fischgericht wrote: post #401

25 years ago pretty much every program had a GUI to do the configuration. With help texts. On Windows, programs then either saved stuff into an ini file or the windows registry, both you could also edit manually. Today we have a programming language coming as a 87 MB binary to create config files. And to run that programming language you need to manually crate a ... config file. So what we are missing now is a 500GB…

25 years ago, you didn't have thousands of websites and applications supporting billions of users and millions of TPS. In hindsight, the innovation around DevOps is nothing short of a marvel IMO. 87 MB in the context of a $100 16GB stick of RAM is basically cheap in relative terms.

Re: Pkl, a Programming Language for Configuration

#416

Post by ivlad »

Fischgericht wrote: post #411
afavour wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That strikes me as a very uncurious perspective. There’s absolutely nothing that could be improved about configuration files? An 87MB binary feels like a very arbitrary measure of worthiness.

ONE actual standard that everyone uses would be fine. For non-tree (nested) configurations, an ini file would do. It's a standard that worked well in 1990, and still does today. For nested data, it doesn't matter to me if it's JSON, YAML, TOML or whatever. Just agree on ONE format. TOML also is a good example of "creating problems instead of solutions": They deliberately (!) broke compatibility to the INI format due…

> TOML also is a good example of "creating problems instead of solutions": They deliberately (!) broke compatibility to the INI format due to "I can't stand unquoted strings". Yeah, emotional feelings about CONFIG FILE FORMATS.

INI is hard to parse because without quotes the parser would not know whether it’s a “True” as a string or True as Boolean value. Formal parser that can be included into a program as a library and would reliably generate internal config representation (e.g., read config file into an object in application memory that will be used to modify the behaviour) is a good thing and TOML helps with that while INI does not.

Re: Pkl, a Programming Language for Configuration

#418

Post by Fischgericht »

ivlad wrote: post #414
Fischgericht wrote: post #401

25 years ago pretty much every program had a GUI to do the configuration. With help texts. On Windows, programs then either saved stuff into an ini file or the windows registry, both you could also edit manually. Today we have a programming language coming as a 87 MB binary to create config files. And to run that programming language you need to manually crate a ... config file. So what we are missing now is a 500GB…

25 years ago admin would be responsible for one server, that they would setup and then never touch until (and sometimes after) someone hacked it. Now people are responsible for thousands of containers, and GUI simply does not scale. And the configuration of those containers is domain-specific and/or varies enough so that you cannot write a single config file and copy it over. This is why configuration management syst…

Oh yes, people DO develop stuff that is not needed. Back in the 90ies pretty much every nerd sooner or later had to write his own programming language (myself included). The difference between then and today: We did throw it away afterwards. These days every week someone spews out a new "programming language", claiming that the re-invented wheel is so much more round than the others.

If fully agree that you might need to automate editing and deploying config files. But you don't need a new programming language for that. Just use one of the thousands of existing languages and tools.

You can for example use sed. A standard since 1973. Available everywhere. 76KB in size. Extremely fast.

Or use AWK. Exists since 1977.

Or you can use Perl. Natively able to read/write ini files, and in general very good at string processing. 6MB in size (or 250KB for embedded versions).

Or use Javascript, PHP, shell scripting, whatever.

But no, there is absolutely no need to invent a new programming language for a task where there are very established tools for.

Re: Pkl, a Programming Language for Configuration

#419

Post by fallensatan »

sigzero wrote: post #408
n42 wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the windows registry, the peak of our craft. No need to innovate, this one’s solved, wrap it up and move on Try taking more time to consider the problems you don’t have that others do, instead of writing anything off that doesn’t make sense to you (and simultaneously gatekeeping an entire industry)

I am taking your comment as a joke because the Windows Registry is a joke.

I think they are being sarcastic about windows registry.

Re: Pkl, a Programming Language for Configuration

#420

Post by cqqxo4zV46cp »

Fischgericht wrote: post #413
n42 wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the windows registry, the peak of our craft. No need to innovate, this one’s solved, wrap it up and move on Try taking more time to consider the problems you don’t have that others do, instead of writing anything off that doesn’t make sense to you (and simultaneously gatekeeping an entire industry)

Creating complex layers upon layers just to "solve" a very simple problem is not innovation. It's shittification.

Misappropriating a trendy word to use as a descriptor for anything you don’t like. This is how someone speaks immediately before taking a look in the mirror and realising that they sound like their parents. You are not the be-all end-all and your drive-by analysis of a technology is going to be biased by its suitability for what you do day-to-day. No amount of experience justifies your attitude.
Post reply on HN