[Python-ideas] Stdlib YAML evolution (Was: PEP 426, YAML in the stdlib and implementation discovery)

[Paul Moore]

On 13 November 2013 17:15, anatoly techtonik <techtonik at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 3, 2013 at 3:59 AM, Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen at xemacs.org> wrote:
>> David Mertz writes:
>>
>>  > I would definitely like to have a YAML library--even one with
>>  > restricted function--in the standard library.
>>
>> Different use cases (and users) will stick at different restrictions.
>> This would be endlessly debatable.  I think the only restriction that
>> really makes sense is the load vs. load_unsafe restriction (and that
>> should be a user decision; the "unsafe" features should be available
>> to users who want them).
>
> Short version of previous letter. "yamlish" is only for simple nested
> human editable data, such as config files. Format is based on widely
> popular "organic" examples found on internet and provided in previous
> letter:

1. Inventing a new data format (your "yamlish" format) is probably a
bad idea. There are enough already.
2. Putting support for a newly designed format directly into the
stdlib is *definitely* a bad idea.

Write a module, put it on PyPI, If it's useful, people will use it.
They will help you to iron out the design of the new format - it may
evolve into "full" YAML or into JSON, in which case you've learned
something about why those formats made the compromises they did, or it
will evolve into a popular new format, at which point it might be
worth proposing that the module is ready to be included in the stdlib.
Or it will not be sufficiently popular, in which case you have at
least solved your personal problem.

If you are expecting someone else to do this, I think the general
message from this thread is that nobody else is interested enough to
take this on, so it isn't going to happen, sorry.

Paul