Why are we templating YAML? (2019)
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Why are we templating YAML? (2019)
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Re: Why are we templating YAML? (2019)
#2This 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: people are just more familiar with it and don't want to have to translate examples to jsonnet that they copy and paste from the web. Do not underestimate this downside :) Same downside would probably apply to TypeScript-generated configs I bet.
Re: Why are we templating YAML? (2019)
#3I 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).
Re: Why are we templating YAML? (2019)
#4Worse yet, in some places (CI/CD) YAML becomes nearly a programming language. A very verbose, unintuitive, badly specified and vendor-specific one as well.
Re: Why are we templating YAML? (2019)
#5For me, environmental variables are super simple and remove all the complexity of these configuration files.
Re: Why are we templating YAML? (2019)
#6I 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 ).
Yeah similarly I'm using Nix to template K8s templates and I've never looked back. Helm is great for deploying 3rd party applications easily but I've never seen the appeal for using it for in house services, templating YAML is gross indeed.
Re: Why are we templating YAML? (2019)
#7In 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.
Re: Why are we templating YAML? (2019)
#8I 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?
Re: Why are we templating YAML? (2019)
#9This 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…
That's sort of what https://cdks.io does, except the final output is YAML for better readability.
Re: Why are we templating YAML? (2019)
#10I wonder whether doing away with config altogether is a solution.
Just build an application that calls AWS APIs directly when you want to deploy or update an environment.