Why YAML sucks?

heikkiket@programming.dev to Programming@programming.dev – 1 points –

I feel that Yaml sucks. I understand the need for such markup language but I think it sucks. Somehow it's clunky to use. Can you explain why?

66

You are viewing a single comment

As a serialization format, agree 100%, but would Python really be better if it switched to braces?

Yes, I think so. The downside with Python comes when refactoring the code. There’s always this double checking if the code is correctly indented after the refactor. Sometimes small mistakes creep in.

It’s really hard to tell when Python code is incorrectly indented. It’s often still valid Python code, but you can’t tell if it’s wrong unless you know the intention of the code.

In order languages it’s always obvious when code is incorrectly indented. There’s no ambiguity.

Can address it by writing code that doesn't depend much on indentation, which also makes code more linear and easier to follow.

It’s only hard to tell indentation in Python when the code block gets longer than about a screen, which is usually a sign the code should be refactored into smaller methods.

People hate hearing that they are bad coders 😂

You and the other guy are saying to focus on writing code with less indentation and using smaller methods, and you both got downvoted.

I fully agree, small methods all the way, and when that's not possible it's time to refactor into possibility!

Or a sign you should get a bigger screen 😂 (j/k)

I think this is just familiarity. I never have issues with indentation, but when refactoring js I'm always like hey who's fucking brace is this

would Python really be better if it switched to braces?

Yes. A thousand times, yes.

Yes it would - look at optional braces for short if expressions in C family languages and why it's so discouraged in large projects. Terminating characters are absolutely worth the cost of an extra LoC

I started in C before moving on to C++, Java, Ruby and Python.

I’ve had more bugs from missing braces than from misaligned whitespace because the latter is far more obvious when looking at a block of code.

Compilation error or run time errors? One is a gift and the other is a curse.

False dichotomy. Optional braces are bad practice because they mislead the programmer that is adding an additional clause to the block.

This misleading behavior wouldn't happen in Python, as it would either be invalid syntax, or it would be part of the block.

Indentation problems are pretty obvious to the reader. Even more than missing or unbalanced braces.

They may be obvious to the reader but they may be impossible to see if tabs and spaces are mixed together.

Closing tokens are always clearer.

That misleading behavior does happen in Python. The next programmer that comes along can’t tell if the original programmer fucked it up and didn’t unindent to put a statement outside of the block or if they meant to put it inside the block. I’ve debugged this one too many times and it takes hours each time because it’s impossible to see the bug at all!!

The misleading behavior is about what you expect to execute in the source code you're looking at vs what's actually executed.

What you describe is a logic ambiguity that can happen in any program / language.

I don’t agree. It’s a direct result of whitespace, which does not happen if you don’t use whitespace. For example it can happen in Java and kotlin, but only if you use if statements without braces, which you pretty much never see. If you do see it you know to look out for the exact issue I described. That’s not possible in Python, since there is no alternative.