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Why are we templating YAML? (2019)

leebriggs.co.uk

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Re: Why are we templating YAML? (2019)

#171

Post by mark_and_sweep »

Draiken wrote: post #72

I agree that YAML templating is kind of insane, but I will never understand why we don't stop using fake languages and simply use a real language. If you need complex logic, use a programming language and generate the YAML/JSON/whatever with it. There you go. Fixed it for you. Ruby, Python, or any other language really (I only favor scripting ones because they're generally easier to run), will give you all of that wi…

Agreed, and I almost feel silly for pointing this out, but for writing JSON (JavaScript Object Notation), I'd recommend using JavaScript...

Re: Why are we templating YAML? (2019)

#172

Post by reissbaker »

I think Steve Yegge got it right when he wrote:

I know, I know — everyone raves about the power of separating your code and your data . . . But it's [not] what you really want, or all the creepy half-languages wouldn't all evolve towards being Turing-complete, would they?

https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/the-emacs-problem

Templating YAML is the same, but... Honestly, Jsonnet is too. If you're going to generate JSON — by god use a normal programming language. You have to teach your team one fewer thing (approximately no one knows Jsonnet); it already integrates with your existing build system; if you wrote a useful util function in your main codebase you can reuse it; if you have a typechecker or a linter you can use it; etc etc.

Re: Why are we templating YAML? (2019)

#173

Post by worldsayshi »

krapp wrote: post #97
Draiken wrote: post #72

I agree that YAML templating is kind of insane, but I will never understand why we don't stop using fake languages and simply use a real language. If you need complex logic, use a programming language and generate the YAML/JSON/whatever with it. There you go. Fixed it for you. Ruby, Python, or any other language really (I only favor scripting ones because they're generally easier to run), will give you all of that wi…

You shouldn't need the full complexity and power of a Turing complete programming language to do config. The point of config is to describe a state, it's just data. You don't need an application within an application to describe state. Inevitably, the path of just using a programming language for config leads to your config becoming more and more complex until it inevitably needs its own config, etc. You wind up with…

We need turing completeness in the strangest of places. We can often limit these places to a smaller part of the code. But it's really hard to know beforehand where those places will occur. Whenever we think we have found a clear separation we invent a config language.

And then we realize that we need scripting so we invent a templating language. Then everybody looses their minds and invents 5 more config languages that surely will make us not need the templating language.

Let's just call it code and use clever types to separate turing and non-turing completeness?

Re: Why are we templating YAML? (2019)

#174

Post by afavour »

Exuma wrote: post #82
foldr wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or more precisely, its country code 'NO' is false. I don't think there are any YAML parsers that parse the literal string 'Norway' as false.

It’s very obvious that’s what he means.

It wasn’t obvious to me. I read it as the literal string “Norway” being parsed as false, which didn’t sound believable but I didn’t make the connection to NO at all.

Re: Why are we templating YAML? (2019)

#175

Post by anoopelias »

lucideer wrote: post #59
armchairhacker wrote: post #38

To me YAML seems like the CoffeeScript of JSON, and unlike CoffeeScript I don’t understand why people are still using it. I guess XML and JSON are too verbose. But YAML is so far in the opposite direction, we get the same surprise conversions we’ve had in Excel ( https://ruudvanasseldonk.com/2023/01/11/the-yaml-document-fr... ). Why is “on” a boolean literal (of course so are “true”, “false”, as well as “yes”, “no”,…

> I don’t understand why people are still using it It's a good comaparator, there are indeed a lot of similarities, but I never understood why anyone ever used Coffeescript whereas I do think I have a solid understanding of why people use YAML. It's more like Python than Coffeescript really: it's not just about simplicity & brevity, it's about terminators. Whitespace-dependent languages are often a pain to format / p…

> why anyone ever used Coffeescript

CoffeeScript was the front runner for 'Compile to JavaScript' technology. It was the first time we could write some sane frontend code.

Of course things like TypeScript came along and now we cannot unsee what we have already seen.

Re: Why are we templating YAML? (2019)

#177

Post by worldsayshi »

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #61
XorNot wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This criticism doesn't pass the sniff test though: your average Haskeller loves to extoll the virtues of using Haskell to implement a DSL for some system which is ultimately just doing the same thing in practice (because they're still not going to write documentation for it, but hey, how hard can it be to figure out it's just...) YAML becomes a programming language because vendors need a DSL for their system, and the…

Hey now. Your average Haskeller would simply recommend you replace YAML with Dhall. https://dhall-lang.org/

Why not "just" use an embedded DSL?

Re: Why are we templating YAML? (2019)

#178

Post by afavour »

__jonas wrote: post #101
armchairhacker wrote: post #38

To me YAML seems like the CoffeeScript of JSON, and unlike CoffeeScript I don’t understand why people are still using it. I guess XML and JSON are too verbose. But YAML is so far in the opposite direction, we get the same surprise conversions we’ve had in Excel ( https://ruudvanasseldonk.com/2023/01/11/the-yaml-document-fr... ). Why is “on” a boolean literal (of course so are “true”, “false”, as well as “yes”, “no”,…

In general I am always confused that it lets you use strings unquoted, which is what allows for all these issues with ambiguity of the interpreted data type, Norway problem and all that. It also just looks odd to me, I don't see why it's necessary to allow this.

It’s because YAML is designed first for readability.

Re: Why are we templating YAML? (2019)

#179

Post by switch007 »

donalhunt wrote: post #106
sspiff wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some places working with Kubernetes, people unironically use the term "YAML engineer".

I've seen memes where SREs complain they have just become YAML engineers. :(

I mean...building a data centre / PaaS with YAML is pretty cool

We used to have to shove servers in to racks ! Kids these days :D

Re: Why are we templating YAML? (2019)

#180

Post by tipiirai »

hoseja wrote: post #95
tipiirai wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then what alternative do you recommend for content creators? Do you use the alternative in Markdown front matter?

I don't think they have a need for configuration files while filming their tiktoks.

What is the best term to use for the people who are writing content on the web team? The ones who write blog entries, documentation, and marketing pages. The ones who mainly touch Markdown files.
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