From: Brian Candler <b.candler@...>
Date: 2010-09-22T04:25:26+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby-based data language

Thomas Sawyer wrote:
>   name "Joe Foo"
>   age 33
>   contact do
>     email "joe@joefoo.com"
>     phione "555-555-1234"
>   end

You could make a parser for that fairly easily - or transform it to JSON 
or YAML and parse that (assuming that contact do .. end constructs a 
nested Hash)

> Such a format would be to Ruby as JSON is to Javascript. And Ruby has a nice advantage with blocks.

That's where I disagree with you. You are using blocks in a Builder or 
Markaby way, but that's not the fundamental purpose or interpretation of 
blocks in the language. And how would you handle Arrays?

The Ruby equivalent of JSON would be a literal Hash:

{
  "name"=>"Joe Foo",
  "age"=>33,
  "contact"=>{
    "email"=>"joe@joefoo.com",
    "phone"=>"555-555-1234",
  },
}

Or if you buy into 1.9 syntax, then you could have

{
  name: "Joe Foo",
  age: 33,
  contact: {
    email: "joe@joefoo.com",
    phone: "555-555-1234",
  },
}

Both are similar enough to JSON that I'd use that instead, and gain the 
portability benefit. It's a shame that JSON doesn't allow trailing 
commas.
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