[Distutils] .ini vs JSON vs YAML meta data format (Was: Simplify 426: Deprecate Author-email and Maintainer-email)

[Vinay Sajip]

anatoly techtonik <techtonik <at> gmail.com> writes:
> Why reinvent own format when there is already YAML with indented sections?
> Yes, I have to see examples to write in this format, but it is readable and
> familiar across a broad range of products. It is better than JSON at least,
> because it doesn't require to wrap anything in quotes.

I too originally thought YAML might be better, but unfortunately the most
mature implementation there is (PyYAML) is still not quite ready, as there
are many open issues around dump() and load(). See for example

http://pyyaml.org/ticket/264

"yaml.load() fails to load a dict just saved by yaml.dump()"

Together with the security issues around YAML (which bit the Rails community
not that long ago) means that JSON is probably a better bet for the moment.

Regards,

Vinay Sajip