From: why the lucky stiff <ruby-talk@...>
Date: 2002-10-28T15:54:46+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby.bah! (was Re: XMLParser, NQXML... and also RAA.succ)

> There is no perfect format, IMHO.  XML's good for machines and for
> transferring between automated processes.  Yaml's good if you need to
> have a human touch down and edit the file and don't want to barrage
> him with a zillion characters that the eye has to parse through.

I'm trying to understand why XML is good for machines.  XML parsers
will likely always be more sizeable and unwieldy to a machine than a
YAML parser.  It seems that XML is good for machines in the same
way that hefting large bales of hay is good for people.  I dunno.

> Multiple plain text files, however, are shell friendly.  I honestly
> see room for having all three as valid formats for describing a
> package.  I actually wonder if I couldn't generate the formats for the
> plain text files and the YAML from the XML spec...  hrm, that'd be an
> interesting exercise in code generation.... any XSLT/YAML buffs out
> there that'd want to take that on?

I would love to help on Rubynet, if you decide to integrate YAML.
When I looked at your dot-files description, I couldn't help but think
of how yaml.rb's api could cover all of your parsing needs.  Software
authors who already know YAML will have less of a barrier to writing
rubynet dot-files.  In addition, YAML is extensible (through its flexible
typing system), which could prove quite beneficial as your dot-file
schema undergoes future revisions.

As a standing offer to any Ruby project: if you want to trade out XML
configuration files or homemade file formats for YAML, please let me know.
I'd be glad to spend some time working out how YAML can work in projects
throughout the community.

_why