YAML: probably not so great after all (2017)

Re:YAML: probably not so great after all (2017) by twodave on Wednesday June 20, 2018 @03:10PM (#17358677)

In our JSON config files we do:

{ "ConfigKeyComment": "This is for blah blah blah", "ConfigKey": "Foo" }

Obviously this wouldn't work in all cases (you're putting more work on your parser to interpret unused keys basically), but if we're talking config files specifically, I see this as an acceptable approach since there's little chance you'll be parsing such files more than once each (plus, writing a simple tool to strip the comments out would be very trivial).

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Re:YAML: probably not so great after all (2017) by biztos on Wednesday June 20, 2018 @04:26PM (#17359434)

I've tried something similar but found it way too painful if the comments need to be long...

    # Never enable this config, because if you do the space-time
    # continuum will collapse into itself and the cloud servers
    # will disappear in a puff of steam. However, if you really
    # must enable it, remember that it's boolean and go read
    # TICKET-8675309 for the extensive list of side effects.
    TurboFactorRenoberation = false

...so people just end up writing stuff like:

    {
        "ConfigKeyComment": "TICKET-8675309",
        "ConfigKey": "TurboFactorRenoberation",
        "ConfigVal": false
    }

[edit]: formatting

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Re:YAML: probably not so great after all (2017) by mschuster91 on Wednesday June 20, 2018 @05:43PM (#17360064)

That's not JSON anymore, that's pretty much enough to be considered a unique DSL. Scary that this is more or less required.

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Re:YAML: probably not so great after all (2017) by zaphar on Wednesday June 20, 2018 @07:26PM (#17360818)

Almost all applications evolve their config files into unique DSLs over time. They may choose a generic serialization for the DSL's AST but it will end up being an underspecified application specific DSL regardless.

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Re:YAML: probably not so great after all (2017) by lostctown on Wednesday June 20, 2018 @04:45PM (#17359590)

Interesting approach.

Maybe I'm lazy but avoiding increasing cost to commenting is one of the few absolutes I abide by. Often I find myself tired after a long stretch of code, trying to convince myself that's it's understandable on it's own.

This is one of those systematic rules I have to enforce to shutdown my lazy lizard brain.

edit: But I can see how highly structured comments could actually come in handy as well for viewing configs in a gui

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