If you're going to use JSON for config, it's better to use an actual JSON parser.
https://john-millikin.com/json-is-not-a-yaml-subset https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31406473
You could mitigate some of the issues and get JSONs "strictness as a feature" by passing the document through e.g. `jq . $file` as a CI step, but I don't think that'd resolve the 1e2 issue. TBH I didn't know you could write numbers in JSON like that, so I imagine it'd be an issue that doesn't come up often. But it's disappointing that it wouldn't just work.
That's false. http://p3rl.org/JSON::XS#JSON-and-YAML
Technically YAML is (supposed to be) a superset of JSON - (almost) all valid JSON is valid YAML. So you could write all your configs in JSON and they'd (probably) work just fine (assuming you keep things relatively simple).
["x","y","z"]
["x", True, "z"]
[1] https://yaml-online-parser.appspot.com/?yaml=foo%3A+%0A-+x%0...
YAML: significant whitespace is always unwelcome but YAML also introduces unexpected problems, like how it deals with booleans. For example, say you have this array:
You might think this is an array of strings, but you'd be wrong.It's also difficult to read through a YAML config and understand the parent of each key, especially in code reviews or just on GH.
I believe k8s life would have been easier with JSON configs, where it's impossible to confuse e.g. booleans for strings and where it's easier to understand the object's hierarchy.
Helm's use of gotpl: this choice exacerbates the problems with YAML. Now you're treating a structured language with a text template library. You have to spend energy thinking about indentation levels and how the values will be interpreted by both the templater and k8s.
I think helm would be less frustrating if they chose some templating library that made objects first class citizens. Where you can inject values at specific locations with one-liners or simple blocks of code (e.g. `ingress.spec.rules[0].append(yadda yadda)`)
I'm sure there was debate about these choices early on and I don't have any unique ideas here, so I don't want to be too critical. These are just a couple of pain points I've personally experienced.