Re: [Yaml-core] State of the Onion

[Clark C . E. <cc...@cl...>]

On Thu, Nov 29, 2001 at 06:12:33PM -0800, Brian Ingerson wrote:
| Sorry to come in late. Very hectic day. Great work guys. 
| I agree with everything, at least in part. 

Good deal.

| > Big change.  OK.  No "spilling".  This puts the nails 
| > in the RFC 822 compatibility coffin.  ;)
| 
| I guess this works out ok. Are keys covered? I'll have
| to sleep on it, but my gut says OK.

Yes.  Keys would be single line as well... unless
you use ? \ to have a next-line scalar key.  

I think Oren proposed this since it'll clean up the 
productions and will probably make the parser easier
to write as well (since the in-line scalar form will 
be more uniform, less special cases).  It may even 
make it easier to learn, less exceptions.  And, if 
we really miss "spilling" in the next few weeks, we 
can always add it  back (before the spec goes out).   
But I think  removing it now would be good.

| > | - A "double quoted" in-line leaf is escaped. "" and \" represent ".
| 
| OK. Do we really need ""? It *is* escaped.

We don't need "" -- I'd like this to be an err, no?

| Well here's the idea I've had all day but couldn;t say until now. I have a
| different proposal. I'd just like us to consider it.
| 
| - { foo = bar, foo foo = 12:00, "quoted\n" = 3.1415 }
| - [ 5, 7, 9]
| - [ 3.14, foo bar, { time = 12:00 } ]
| - []
| - {}
|
| The only advantage above is the ability to nest small vectors. Might be
| nice. The syntax is also crystal clear to Perl People.

1) I'm not sure nesting is desireable.  If someone has
   something this complex; perhaps it should be multiple
   lines (so indentation shows structure).

2) The pairing mechanism (Familar to most programmers) invites
   someone to write multi-line lists, and do nesting.  This
   will then subvert our indention mechanism.

So, while it's a nice idea; given your previous post
where you clearly praise the nested structures via
indentation... the above seems like a departure.  But,
then again, TMTOWTDI, right?

I suggest if we do go this way, we should revisit the 
"spilling" question, or we'll have to have this as
one of the first things in the FAQ:


item: [ this spans multiple, lines so it is,
        NOT LEGAL ]

Winks,

Clark