On Wednesday, 25 November 2015 at 22:20:39 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> It's more like "Do this, no need to argue". There's really no need, and we're arguing too much over too little. -- Andrei

Is anyone else having flashbacks to Phobos vs. Tango?

In this case, as much as I like how the SDL syntax is more readable (at least to me), the history of Phobos shows that standardization wins in most cases. I don't know if we want to yank the syntax right out of DUB, but we could at least deprecate it until things settle out.

Or, hey, we could use XML. ;)

On Wednesday, 25 November 2015 at 22:51:28 UTC, rsw0x wrote:
> On Wednesday, 25 November 2015 at 19:12:43 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>> It's not. To DUB maintainers: this is a strategic error. Please throw SDL away and use a standardized file format. -- Andrei
>
> And in what domain is json considered a standardized -configuration- file format?

I don't think that there's really _any_ format that qualifies as a standardized configuration file format, but JSON is a well-known, standardized format, whereas SDL really isn't. Plenty of programmers will be familiar with JSON even if they aren't familiar with what fields belong in a dub configuration file and what goes in them, but pretty much no one is going to know SDL. So, while SDL was not invented for dub, in terms of how well-known it will be to those new to dub, it might as well have been invented specifically for dub. With JSON, however, what will be new to most folks is what fields and values go in the configuration file, not the format that it's in.

So, from the standpoint of whether folks new to dub will have to learn a new file format, JSON is clearly better than SDL, though SDL may in fact be a better file format for a configuration file if you know both.

- Jonathan M Davis

On Wed, Nov 25, 2015 at 11:04:35PM +0000, BLM768 via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On Wednesday, 25 November 2015 at 22:20:39 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> >It's more like "Do this, no need to argue". There's really no need, and we're arguing too much over too little. -- Andrei
> 
> Is anyone else having flashbacks to Phobos vs. Tango?
> 
> In this case, as much as I like how the SDL syntax is more readable (at least to me), the history of Phobos shows that standardization wins in most cases. I don't know if we want to yank the syntax right out of DUB, but we could at least deprecate it until things settle out.
> 
> Or, hey, we could use XML. ;)
[...]

Please, no. XML is unreadable write-only stuff that should only be read/written by machine, it's not suitable as a *user* interface.


T

-- 
Customer support: the art of getting your clients to pay for your own incompetence.

On 11/25/2015 06:37 PM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> So, from the standpoint of whether folks new to dub will have to learn a
> new file format, JSON is clearly better than SDL, though SDL may in fact
> be a better file format for a configuration file if you know both.

That sums it up nicely.

I am sorry for being curt, but I really need to get work done and this is not getting work done. I could argue my point about SDL vs. JSON and explain at length what I think; then I could reply to folks who decompose my own points down to misplaced commas and attempt to do the same to them; and 300 posts later essentially nothing got done and everybody wasted a bunch of time.

Folks. Things could go either way, and there's pros and cons to every engineering decision. But we don't need to make this a debate. It took me 5 seconds to figure this was a strategy mistake. I clearly see how it could take someone else 5 seconds to figure this was a strategy win. They call those judgment calls because there's no clear cut. To the extent I've accumulated some street cred and karma in our community, I hope it can be traded for some saying in what the strategy should be. If that's the case, please let's get it carried. I can't afford to debate this tooth and nail because it takes me away from things that matter more.


Andrei

On 11/25/2015 12:39 PM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> To be fair, they _didn't_ invent a new format. They just picked one that's far
> less well-known than what they were using before.

The energy poured into SDL would be more profitably directed towards improving Phobos' json support.

On 11/25/2015 1:03 PM, Gary Willoughby wrote:
> Json is clear, concise, everyone and his dog knows it and their IDE recognises it.

Yes. Trying to convince people to use D is hard enough without dumping a whole bunch of other unfamiliar formats on them.

On Thursday, 26 November 2015 at 01:14:11 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 11/25/2015 12:39 PM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
>> To be fair, they _didn't_ invent a new format. They just picked one that's far
>> less well-known than what they were using before.
>
> The energy poured into SDL would be more profitably directed towards improving Phobos' json support.

Maybe you somehow missed it but Sonke has already spent a lot of energy on a new JSON module for Phobos:

http://forum.dlang.org/thread/lt5s76$is$1@digitalmars.com

On 11/25/2015 5:24 PM, Brad Anderson wrote:
> On Thursday, 26 November 2015 at 01:14:11 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
>> On 11/25/2015 12:39 PM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
>>> To be fair, they _didn't_ invent a new format. They just picked one that's far
>>> less well-known than what they were using before.
>>
>> The energy poured into SDL would be more profitably directed towards improving
>> Phobos' json support.
>
> Maybe you somehow missed it but Sonke has already spent a lot of energy on a new
> JSON module for Phobos:
>
> http://forum.dlang.org/thread/lt5s76$is$1@digitalmars.com

I know he has. There's nothing that cannot be improved :-)

On Thursday, 26 November 2015 at 01:14:11 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 11/25/2015 12:39 PM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
>> To be fair, they _didn't_ invent a new format. They just picked one that's far
>> less well-known than what they were using before.
>
> The energy poured into SDL would be more profitably directed towards improving Phobos' json support.

The energy has already been spent. It's already supported. Projects are already using it. This isn't something new.

Regarding other comments in this thread, *JSON support is not going away.* If you prefer to use JSON, use it. There's no problem here.

As for searchability, you'll find discussions in the vibe.d forums where people refer to it as SDLang now rather than SDL to avoid confusion with the game library. Type that into Google and you're golden. It's no different than encouraging people to search for DLang instead of D, so it's not a big deal.

There are plenty of us who prefer to use SDLang over JSON for our config files. We do not want to see support for it taken away when there's no need for it. It's a much cleaner format, IMO, popular or not. Anyone who finds SDLang somehow abhorrent can just use JSON and move on.

On Thursday, 26 November 2015 at 04:29:20 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:

>> The energy poured into SDL would be more profitably directed towards improving Phobos' json support.
>
> The energy has already been spent. It's already supported. Projects are already using it. This isn't something new.
>
> Regarding other comments in this thread, *JSON support is not going away.* If you prefer to use JSON, use it. There's no problem here.
>
> As for searchability, you'll find discussions in the vibe.d forums where people refer to it as SDLang now rather than SDL to avoid confusion with the game library. Type that into Google and you're golden. It's no different than encouraging people to search for DLang instead of D, so it's not a big deal.
>
> There are plenty of us who prefer to use SDLang over JSON for our config files. We do not want to see support for it taken away when there's no need for it. It's a much cleaner format, IMO, popular or not. Anyone who finds SDLang somehow abhorrent can just use JSON and move on.

Is there any document explaining how to default to JSON so it isn't necessary to specify each time? Also SDL isn't the default so if they both stay shouldn't the discussion be which is the default or if the user chooses their preference at sometime after install (maybe first project)?