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Jeroen W. Pluimers on .NET, C#, Delphi, databases, and personal interests

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Archive for the ‘YAML’ Category

Three dashes or a rendered horizontal table at the top of your GitHub markdown document? That’s YAML metadata

Posted by jpluimers on 2025/01/22

Many Markdown documents on GitHub have three dashes (---) at the top (and rendered a horizontal table displays).

I didn’t know this markdown construct, and it appears to be GitHub specific: it is a way to render YAML metadata (for instance used while blogging).

So I searched for [Wayback/Archive] three dashes table markdown – Google Search and found [Wayback/Archive] Viewing YAML Metadata in your Documents | The GitHub Blog.

Well, actually… Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Blogging, Configuration Management, Development, Lightweight markup language, MarkDown, Power User, SocialMedia, Software Development, YAML | Leave a Comment »

I learned about the “YAML-NOrway Law.”

Posted by jpluimers on 2023/06/15

Every time I use YAML, I bump into things even I copy paste from exact working configurations.

Today I learned I’m not just alone, but there is even a term for it: “YAML-NOrway Law.”

[Wayback/Archive] I’d like to propose the “YAML-NOrway Law.” “Anyone who uses YAML long enough wil… | Hacker News

I’d like to propose the “YAML-NOrway Law.”

“Anyone who uses YAML long enough will eventually get burned when attempting to abbreviate Norway.”

Example:

  NI: Nicaragua
  NL: Netherlands
  NO: Norway # boom!

`NO` is parsed as a boolean type, which with the YAML 1.1 spec, there are 22 options to write “true” or “false.”[1] For that example, you have wrap “NO” in quotes to get the expected result.

This, along with many of the design decisions in YAML strike me as a simple vs. easy[2] tradeoff, where the authors opted for “easy,” at the expense of simplicity. I (and I assume others) mostly use YAML for configuration. I need my config files to be dead simple, explicit, and predictable. Easy can take a back seat.

[1]: [Wayback/Archive] http://yaml.org/type/bool.html [2]: [Wayback/Archive] https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy

Even a key Ansible author seems to regret using YAML: [Archive] Kevin Honka on Twitter: “@hikhvar @isotopp jap :) Muss da immer an den Spruch des entwicklers von Ansible denken: Hätte ich gewusst, wie einfach es ist in Python eine DSL zu bauen, hätte ich nie YAML verwendet” / Twitter

Somewhere in the tread, Kris mentioned [Wayback/Archive] Code rant: The Configuration Complexity Clock:

It seems to be a recurring issue in both Kris’ and my life: One needs to actually fail in order to get a feel for reality.

Via [Archive] Kris on Twitter: “Die YAML Spezifikation gelesen. yaml-dox-url Jetzt habe ich Alpträume. “Erkläre Node Tags, Complex Keys mit ?, resolved und unresolved tags, und partial representation.”” / Twitter

[Wayback/Archive] YAML Ain’t Markup Language (YAML™) revision 1.2.2

–jeroen

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Configuration Management, Infrastructure, YAML | Leave a Comment »