Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2014 11:48:59 -0700 From: Jos Backus <jos@catnook.com> To: Baptiste Daroussin <bapt@freebsd.org> Cc: arch@freebsd.org, Adrian Chadd <adrian@freebsd.org>, Jordan Hubbard <jkh@mail.turbofuzz.com>, "Simon J. Gerraty" <sjg@juniper.net> Subject: Re: XML Output: libxo - provide single API to output TXT, XML, JSON and HTML Message-ID: <CAETOPp0kj1pE1nGGX8iLm0jZX8wL_-=SQANU1Jmznp2riv5cXA@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <20140730170355.GM37672@ivaldir.etoilebsd.net> References: <A1E63A7A-BB38-4CC3-B5EC-B251BE990572@mail.turbofuzz.com> <CAETOPp0c1xfMj1vDvQRSoV3ec-LdJmyT9AFH02iziN0yuY1D-A@mail.gmail.com> <CAJ-VmomiwUWHWYLdLcQAnp7QBmvQR2wfPoCy=eie-jrvyw0HfA@mail.gmail.com> <CAETOPp3zkpp4PY-CeA4Ei=r7_tw1S6rVYiniU%2BZxQF3PESVAxA@mail.gmail.com> <20140729232338.40AA6580A2@chaos.jnpr.net> <CAETOPp1xcNZW1YdgVErZ2ngJM5D3p%2BL3HJHE2aKOvEvSh6Sh%2Bw@mail.gmail.com> <20140730034641.46ABE580A2@chaos.jnpr.net> <CAETOPp2_dwqeLwYOatS-SrP5FYYYJA%2BGCK2qUsCVTyX4MJ7Yeg@mail.gmail.com> <20140730071500.GF37672@ivaldir.etoilebsd.net> <CAETOPp3wedFRmDTTX4kfm-AoyB2bk-pUEOfO5WSM8M_i186Hyw@mail.gmail.com> <20140730170355.GM37672@ivaldir.etoilebsd.net>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Jul 30, 2014 10:04 AM, "Baptiste Daroussin" <bapt@freebsd.org> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Jul 30, 2014 at 09:18:40AM -0700, Jos Backus wrote:
> > On Jul 30, 2014 12:15 AM, "Baptiste Daroussin" <bapt@freebsd.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 09:44:17PM -0700, Jos Backus wrote:
> > > > On Jul 29, 2014 8:46 PM, "Simon J. Gerraty" <sjg@juniper.net> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > On Tue, 29 Jul 2014 16:30:53 -0700, Jos Backus writes:
> > > > > >> You certainly cannot wait for all of it to arrive before you
start
> > > > > >> rendering.
> > > > > >
> > > > > >Understood. This is why a serialization output format that
supports
> > > > > >streaming data is useful.
> > > > >
> > > > > Indeed; XML works fine for that.
> > > >
> > > > Not to beat a dead horse, but so does YAML, and it's more
> > lightweight/less
> > > > verbose so I personally find it more elegant. But sure, XML would
work
> > as
> > > > well.
> > > >
> > > YAML is not more lightweight at all, it is really heavy to parse
compared
> > to
> > > XML or JSON.
> >
> > By lightweight I meant syntax verbosity, not computational load
(although
> > it seems easy to emit). It's a more flexible format, and that comes
with a
> > certain price. The question is whether that flexibility is needed or
> > useful. If JSON can't be used because of its limitations, I would
> > personally prefer the less verbose YAML over XML.
> >
> About json what limitation are you talking about?
Several limitations have been mentioned: no support for comments, binary
data, streaming. YAML is a superset of JSON so there are things one can do
with YAML that one cannot do (easily) with JSON. The question is whether
those things matter enough.
> In yaml you have 2 syntax, on which is inconsistent but user friendly and
the
> other which as ugly as XML imho
>
> this_is_string: treu
> this__bool: true
> so_if_i_want_a_string_true_i_need_quote: "true"
>
> If I want to be consistent I need to use the canonical form of yaml:
>
> ---
> !!map {
> ? !!str "so_if_i_want_a_string_true_i_need_quote"
> : !!str "true",
> ? !!str "this__bool"
> : !!bool "true",
> ? !!str "this_is_string"
> : !!str "treu",
> }
>
> and now this is very very ugly :(
Cute, but rare. How often can one not use the easy format, and how often
does one want the string" true" rather than the Boolean value?
> Plus yaml is context dependant and space dependant resulting in people
getting lost about:
> "Why this yaml is not valid":
>
> hu: ha
> hi:
> - test
> - test2
>
> Or why this one is not valid either?
>
> hu: ha
> hi: test
>
>
> I have been there with pkg(8) after being a huge suppoter of YAML I'm now
more moderated :)
Sure, one has to apply some care with whitespace. This hasn't prevented
Python from becoming popular so it must not be as big a deal, and I know
the Ruby community uses YAML effectively quite a bit.
>
> YAML was not machine friendly at all in the end and very very error prone
for humans :(
Granted, JSON is a simpler format.
Jos
P. S. I've said everything I planned to say so I am going to move on from
this bikeshed now.
>
> regards,
> Bapt
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?CAETOPp0kj1pE1nGGX8iLm0jZX8wL_-=SQANU1Jmznp2riv5cXA>