dub: JSON, SDL, YAML, TOML, what color should we paint it ?

[Mathias LANG]

On Tuesday, 28 February 2023 at 15:35:58 UTC, Steven 
Schveighoffer wrote:
> Json5. It's json but with comments and allows key names without 
> quotes.
>
> https://json5.org/

I didn't knew it supported quoteless keys, that's pretty nice!
If it's a superset of JSON, we could potentially do it in place 
too.

> I have to say, I hate YAML. With a passion. The "backwards 
> compatibility with JSON" is pretty must just bolted on. And 
> having multiple ways to write configurations might be nice for 
> people writing configs, it's not nice for people reading them. 
> Also, significant whitespace = bad.

I think the significant whitespace boat has sailed. I don't like 
it anymore than you do, but nowadays, editors align everything, 
and if they don't, the linter will complain, or the reviewer 
will. As much as I dislike it, I think significant whitespace 
just hasn't proved to be the barrier it was envisioned to be, as 
demonstrated by Python and YAML.

> I would be OK with TOML. But then we have 3 formats. Changing 
> to a json-compatible format means we still only have to 
> maintain 2 parsers.

Note that going with YAML allows us to deprecate the SDL parser. 
Going with JSON5 includes writing a new parser, and a library to 
do what Configy currently does, on top.