From: jbritt@...
Date: 2003-03-19T15:02:49+09:00
Subject: Re: XML too hard (YAML opportunity?)


> Now you can store anything in a configuration file,
> which is liberating.  That something is a boolean, string, integer,
> array, hash or whatever...YAML deals with for me.  That is really nice.

But what if you don't want to couple your data to a particular language
type?

Suppose I write a YAML file to hold, say, groups of name=value pairs.  My
understanding
is that I have to decide, when designing the data file, whether each group
is to be a
hash, or a list, or some other type.  My application code will then be
expecting to deal
with data arriving as this type.

If, later, I decide that DataTypeFoo was a poor choice and would rather my
app
process the data as DataTypeBar, I either have to change the config format
or have
an extra step in my app to change the data from one format to another. No?

For example, if I have

 some_num: 23

it's an integer.  If later I decide that floats are better and want change
my
code, don't the older data files have to be rewritten?


>   Oh, and did I say that YAML files are readable?

You did, but I'm not always seeing that when I read the YAML spec.


James