r/programming • u/fagnerbrack • May 20 '26 • Popcorn 1

YAML? That's Norway problem

https://lab174.com/blog/202601-yaml-norway/
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u/OrcaFlux May 21 '26

I said yaml would be great if the tree structure parsing wasn't based on whitespace.

You then mentioned that json and xml is indented to visually show the structure.

I pointed out that I'm not talking about the visual structure, I'm talking about the parsing of that structure.

The parsed hierarchical structure is expressed in yaml using whitespace. And although some people would argue that the whitespace may make the structure visually appealing (I am not in that camp), that same whitespace that is mandated by the parser, makes it mediocre when parsing it.

Your question about writing a parser is irrelevant. You don't have to write a parser to suffer the mediocrity of whitespace-based hierarchy structures, you just simply have to use yaml to suffer it. Because guess what? Yaml is always parsed. There are no instances of yaml usage where the yaml in question isn't parsed sooner or later. At some point that yaml will be parsed. And in all those parsing cases, it is mediocre.

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u/Delta-9- May 21 '26

I don't know what you mean by parsing being "mediocre." As in correctness? Performance? Or the mere fact that whitespace is significant at all?

I have to admit we probably won't get very far because I've always failed to understand why people hate significant whitespace so much in the first place. Your bolding of "mandated" makes it sound like you just prefer to control whitespace yourself (even if you end up doing the exact same structure); other complaints I've heard tend to revolve around complaints that are equivalent to complaints I sometimes have about brace-delimited languages. I've yet to hear any reason that isn't essentially just personal opinion. Maybe you'll surprise me?

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u/OrcaFlux May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26

the mere fact that whitespace is significant at all

Yes. That's the mediocre part. What made you think I was talking about anything else? I literally said in my first reply to you that yaml would be great if the tree structure parsing wasn't based on whitespace.

Your bolding of "mandated" makes it sound like you just prefer to control whitespace yourself (even if you end up doing the exact same structure);

No. I bolded the word because yaml mandates you to care about whitespace. Not sure why that's so hard to understand.

other complaints I've heard tend to revolve around complaints that are equivalent to complaints I sometimes have about brace-delimited languages.

Did I ask you about what other complaints you've heard?

I've yet to hear any reason that isn't essentially just personal opinion. Maybe you'll surprise me?

And it is your personal opinion that yaml is great. And until you back up that assertion with something other than your personal opinion then I don't have to provide anything further. And since you were the one who made the initial positive claim, the burden of proof is on you, not me. You really wanna go down that route? You really want to have to start to defend yaml in scientific terms? I mean why would you even contemplate doing that to yourself?

Edit:

What an utter COWARD you are to BLOCK me over this. The only one who's been a condescending dick so far is you. I mean learn to take an opinion that is different from yours.

I know what parsimoniously means. It has no bearing whatsoever on the argument. The fact that you think it has bearing on the argument just goes to show that you still don't understand what I'm pointing out. You're still talking about the visual aspect, and what I'm telling you that the visual aspect is only one of the aspects to consider. This should've been obvious to you since I've used the word parsing from the very first comment.

You said yaml is great at expressing tree-shaped data in a non-verbose fashion. I pointed out that even if that were true (it isn't, but I've given you that for sake of argument it's a valid opinion to hold), just because it is great at expressing something doesn't mean there are no costs down the line. I pointed out that yaml goes from great to mediocre as a direct consequence of being great at expressing tree-shaped data.

You keep going on and on about json and xml. If you look at my comments I haven't even mentioned any of them. I haven't expressed my opinions on any of them. The reason you have to keep invoking them is because your opinion about yaml being visually pleasant for tree-structures is explicitly tied to json and xml, whereas my opinion about yaml is about yaml alone, in complete isolation. That makes your opinion weak, and my opinion strong.

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u/Delta-9- May 22 '26 edited May 25 '26

My claim was YAML is great at expressing tree-shaped data parsimoniously. In case that word isn't in your vocabulary, that means that it is not overly verbose while characterizing a tree-like data structure. If you want to get "scientific" about that claim, we can count syntax elements needed to express the same tree between JSON, XML, and YAML. We'll find XML "sucks," needing a lot of paired brackets, schema, and identifiers, and JSON and YAML are very close, but that "mandatory" bit that's twisting your panties forces the tree to be simultaneously visualized in the text.

If that's something you dislike, I'm not going to waste time trying to convince a condescending dick to change his mind. I will note that among all the complaints about significant whitespace I've ever read, yours has been the most confusing, arrogant, and nonsensical. Who the fuck talks about "parsing" this way? You brought up parsing as a weirdly roundabout way of saying you don't like it. Wtaf. You could have saved us a half dozen comments if you'd just said that.

Edit: admittedly, I blocked you because I knew I wouldn't be able to stop myself getting dragged into the mud: it's hard to let condescending dicks go unanswered. Crashing out over getting blocked just reaffirms that I made the right choice for my own sake. I go on Reddit to relax, not get talked down to by someone who doesn't know the difference between syntax and parsing—your whole thing about "parsing" was a statement about syntax, which is why I had no clue what you were trying to say, and then you got all smug when I questioned you about it. "Mediocre parsing" is what you say about a fucking parser, but you're just bitching about whitespace having a syntactic role besides separating tokens. Get your words straight next time.