[Distutils] comparison of configuration languages

[Paul Moore]

On 10 May 2016 at 16:00, Antoine Pitrou <solipsis at pitrou.net> wrote:
> On Tue, 10 May 2016 10:55:38 -0400
> Donald Stufft <donald at stufft.io> wrote:
>>
>> I think TOML is more usable than ConfigParser and in particular I think that
>> the adhoc post processing step makes ConfigParser inherently less usable
>> because it forces a special syntax that is specific to this one file. It also
>> means that there's no "right" answer for when you have two different
>> implementations that interpret the same file differently.
>
> That's true. OTOH, the question is how much better it is for users
> that it's worthwhile bothering them with a syntax change that will
> require (at one point or another) migrating existing files. TOML doesn't
> seem that compelling to me in that regard (quite less than YAML, and I'm
> not a YAML fan).

The one aspect that's missing from this discussion (largely because
the PEP's still in the process of being written) is a clear statement
of what capabilities we *need* from a config file format. I suspect
we'll need:

  - Lists, for dependencies
  - Nesting (although this is more for "future expansion" by allowing
us to namespace the keys)

If we're looking to put package metadata in this file, we may also
need multi-line string capabilities (for things like descriptions).

Before we decide on a format based solely on tool support ("how easy
is it for us to write the code?") we should probably see examples of
the expected file config using the various different formats ("how
easy is the format for users to use?").

Paul