>
> I was wondering today how YAML might differ from its current design if it
were
> not dependent on indention? Any thoughts?
>
> T.
>
flow style everywhere, almost directly copypastable to perl (to the "why
bother?" level), explicit collection end markers with lispish appeal,
appaling to python users...
that said, i really do like the right-hand frames in spec with flow
collections and double quoted strings - everything is clear, pronounced
markers of collections, so easily parsable, natural fit for computers.
but for humans indentation is more natural - that's how books are printed
for some 500+ years.
incidentally, a few months ago i was doing program translating written
documentation from plain text to xml. dealing with indentation was a
nightmare - because there were no given rules (in the end i was able to
identify programmer by text - amount of indent, different bullet styles
etc.). interesting point was, that while it was dead easy to read the text,
making sufficiently general regex was problem - everything was variable.
finally i chickened out on tables embedded in bulleted list. how i wished
they had used yaml, back in 1990s when they'd written the help texts :-)
indent is just a trade-off: more difficult for computer, more natural for
people.
(btw perl6 is taking the same direction, trade-off-wise, not indent-wise
;-) )
brano tichy
tichy@...
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