On 17 Jan 2002, Randal L. Schwartz wrote: > YAML is very data-centric (fine for machine-to-machine communication, > but a bit awkward for human to machine or even human to human), > however, and indent sensitive (think "python"). I'd vote against > moving from RFC822-header-style info files (at present) to YAML. Ugh.
Well, I'm not sure what you're talking about, given that YAML is specifically designed to be human-readable. And as for indent-sensitivity and moving from the current RFC822-header style: In the fairly simple case that Fink's info files would fall under, it would look very much like a RFC822-header, with probably no more than one, maybe two, levels of indentation. (*) As such, the transition from the current style would be fairly minimal, compared to XML. This is a sizable plus. So why move from the current format to YAML at all then? Because it provides flexibility -- various styles of handling multi-line text, escaping binary and unicode, arbitrary nesting (probably the most important), built-in framework for stream-based parsing, etc. -- that the current format does not, AFAICT. Except for the multi-line functionality, all stuff you get by using XML, except you don't need to add anywhere near as much markup as XML. I realize it's not the popular suggestion, but give it a decent look before dismissing it. (*) As a perl devotee, I understand your revulsion to forced use of indentation, Randall. I'm of the same mind... but only with respect to soruce code. This is not source code though, but rather essentially a config file, and use of whitespace to indicate nesting makes far more sense in that circumstance, IMHO. _______________________________________________ Fink-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/fink-devel
