Draft PEP on RSON configuration file format

[Patrick Maupin]

On Mar 1, 2:42 pm, Paul Rubin <no.em... at nospam.invalid> wrote:
> Patrick Maupin <pmau... at gmail.com> writes:
> > But for my use-case, YAML is irretrievably broken.  Sure, it looks
> > reasonably nice, but it increases regression runtime unacceptably.
>
> How big are the files that you want to parse with it?  Sheesh.

Tiny, but over and over.  The rst2pdf testsuite can generate
approximately 160 PDFs, totalling around 2.5 MB, in around 22 seconds
on one of my machines.  But if I replace the JSON parser with a YAML
parser, that goes up to 55 seconds.  Wait, maybe it's because JSON is
optimized in C!  Nope, using JSON but disabling the C scanner only
takes it to 22.3 seconds...

>
> > Well, I've looked at the YAML parser and I can assure you that I will
> > not be contributing to that project.
>
> So write a new one that parses the same syntax, but cleaner and faster.

But there are already several parsers for YAML, and none of them
agree!  The syntax definition is a mess.  The thing's been in
development for 10 years now, and there is no one true way to do it.
Seriously, YAML overreaches for what I want.

> > XML can certainly be made readable by humans.  It's hard to make it
> > writeable by (average) humans just using a regular text editor,
>
> I do it all the time; it's a bit dreary but not difficult.  And there is
> absolutely no way to get anything done in this field anymore without
> dealing with XML from time to time.  So given that we all have some
> experience using it, it's sensible to stick with it.

But people "in this field" are not really my target audience.  Well, I
mean people in this field are the target audience for the library, but
not for the writing of the actual text files.

> ReST is another abomination that should never have gotten off the
> ground.  It is one of the reasons I react so negatively to your
> config format proposal.  It just sounds like more of the same.

Well, that clarifies a lot.  I guess we'll just have to agree to
disagree :-)

Regards,
Pat