yaml talk

I love yaml. Since symfony populates this format for their well-formed configuration files I adopted the idea replacing my php array,ini and xml files against yaml files.

I use Spyc (http://spyc.sourceforge.net/) on my Win32 dev machine,my server provides the syck extension (http://gentoo-portage.com/dev-php5/syck-php-bindings).

I’m also starting to think about using yaml in my php applications but as you mentioned in your talk,Spyc is terribly slow. Unfortunately sometimes it’s the only solution because I need to also write yaml files. I’ll have to keep my eye on the development of your Syck php binding

Interesting,I’m gonna give that transcript a read. Since being introduced to Symfony,I’ve been needing to work with yaml a lot,and I feel it’s a very nice way of,for instance,storing configuration files.

Alexey Zakhlestin’s Blog:YAML Talk (PHPThinktank)…

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YAML should stand for ‘Yet Another Markup Language’. Yes,I know it’s not markup,but it’s just another file format. I struggle sometimes with the availability of so many options and whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. I find that too many options can lead to analysis paralysis.

I understand that each file format has it’s benefits;XML has verbosity and extensibility,ini has clarity and simplicity,etc…

I personally don’t like YAML at all,but I use it. Why would I use it if I don’t like it? Because I’m a good programmer but not as good as the team that developed symfony. I concede to their better knowledge. Symfony uses yaml in all it’s configuration (which is a mistake IMHO). Yes,it may be faster to parse,but configuration is cached in symfony (in production environments).

I would like people to help me understand why YAML is better for configuration than XML? XML is so widely used today. So many people already are comfortable working with it. Many,many more editors support XML syntax highlighting than YAML. As a matter of fact,I don’t think I’ve seen any other editors other than Vim that support highlighting for YAML syntax. I’m absolutely sure that they exist,I just haven’t seen them yet.

Anyway,I know I’m sounding a little negative toward YAML but this is simply my view. I’m open minded and would like to hear what others have to say about YAML and my view on it. I’m not saying that YAML should not exist or work on it should cease. I’m simply saying that I feel it will do more harm than good to have available Yet Another Markup Language.

Larry:
a) XML is not nearly as readable as YAML
b) XML doesn’t enforce types of values (it can be done using Schema,but it’s another level of complexity). Actually,XML doesn’t map on data-strucures at all — you need an external explicit set of rules to do it,whil YAML implicitly maps on arrays and hashes

These are just very different beasts.

regarding syntax highlighting:there are YAML modes for Eclipse and TextMate

Larry I agree with you,but I reckon YAML has its place. I’ll still be using ini for very simple config files that non-techies will want to edit,and I’m sure XML will still have it’s use. I’m mainly interested in using YAML to replace config files that store multi-dimensional data where I currently use php arrays.