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Why are we templating YAML? (2019)

leebriggs.co.uk

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Re: Why are we templating YAML? (2019)

#11

Post by geethree »

throwaway143829 wrote: post #2

This article made me think it'd be nice to generate k8s JSON using TypeScript. Just a node script that runs console.log(JSON.stringify(config)), and you pipe that to a yaml file in your deploy script. The syntax seems more sane and has more broad appeal than jsonnet, and I'd wager that the dev tooling would be better given good enough typings. By the way the answer to the question "why are we templating yaml?" is: pe…

Take a look at cdk8s from Amazon.

https://github.com/cdk8s-team/cdk8s-examples/tree/main/types...

Re: Why are we templating YAML? (2019)

#12

Post by roenxi »

I see a problem here. I'm not certain if the sort of person who would choose YAML as their configuration language sees a problem here.

There is a direct conflict between human-centred data representations and computer-centred. Computers love things that look like a bit like a Lisp. Humans like things that look a bit like Python. If you're the sort of person who wants to use a computer to manipulate their Kubernetes config then you'd be secretly annoyed that Kubernetes uses YAML. However, it appears the Kubernetes community are mainly YAML people, so why would they mind that their config files will be horrible to work with once programming logic gets involved? The downside of YAML is exactly this scenario, and I believe the people involved in K8s are generally cluey enough to see that coming.

> YAML is a superset of JSON

The spec writers can put whatever they want in their document, but I don't think this is true. If you go in and convert all the YAML config to JSON, the DevOps team is going to get upset. The two data formats have the same semantic representation, but so do all languages compiled to the same CPU arch. JSON and YAML are disjoint in practice. Mixing the two isn't a good idea.

Re: Why are we templating YAML? (2019)

#13

Post by pvorb »

tipiirai wrote: post #8

I think YAML is a good pick for non-developers / content creators. The front matter section in Markdown files is a good example. Or is there a better, human-friendly alternative?

YAML is all but human-friendly. It has far too many special features and edge cases for most people. Something simple like Java properties files would solve something like markdown front matter perfectly fine.

Re: Why are we templating YAML? (2019)

#14

Post by Anarch157a »

Thev00d00 wrote: post #7

In my experience there is a near zero uptake of jsonnet or similar amongst "regular" i.e less ops inclined developers. gotmpl is a lot easier to grok if you are coming in cold. Yes it sucks for anything mildly complex, but the barrier to entry is significantly lower. Generation via real programming languages is the future I am hoping for.

Jsonnet looks like a case of XKCD-927[0]. I fully agree with you that real programing languages are the way to go for generating anything more complex.

[0] https://xkcd.com/927/

Re: Why are we templating YAML? (2019)

#15

Post by Leo_Verto »

embik wrote: post #3

I am really sad that jsonnet / ksonnet never really took off. It’s a great way to template, but has a bit of a learning curve in my experience. I suspect that is why it’s niche. If you like what is presented in this article, take a look at Grafana Tanka ( https://tanka.dev ).

The fact that it's a purely functional programming language with lazy evaluation is really powerful but steepens the learning curve for devs who haven't worked with functional languages.

The stdlib is also pretty sparse, missing some commonly required functions.

Re: Why are we templating YAML? (2019)

#19

Post by kristiandupont »

tipiirai wrote: post #8

I think YAML is a good pick for non-developers / content creators. The front matter section in Markdown files is a good example. Or is there a better, human-friendly alternative?

You just pinpointed my biggest peeve with YAML. It looks like it's "human friendly" because there are no scary curly braces. But you still need to get the syntax exactly right, so that benefit is very small. And now you have to keep your finger on the screen while scrolling in order to figure out what a bullet belongs to.
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