Re: [Gzz] One more new file format ;)

[B. Fallenstein]

Hi!

Tuomas Lukka wrote:
> Since we need to amend the file format anyway (due
> to the vstream change and preflets), we thought with
> Benja that we might just as well move to yaml (www.yaml.org)
> at the same time. 

Okay, after thinking about this for a frustrating couple of hours: Yaml 
is *far* too complex. (It might be different if there were a Yaml 
processor for Java of Jython, but alas, there isn't.) Yaml does a very 
interesting thing-- it maps a very readable stream syntax to a quite 
abstract internal data structure (directed graphs). That sets it apart 
from approaches that have a simple syntax but burden an application with 
serializing complex objects into its overly simple semantics (meaning 
that applications have to create their own aliasing and stuff).

So if you have a Yaml processor for your programming language, it makes 
for a quite nice serialization format for complex objects.

We have neither the processor nor complex objects we need to serialize.

(In fact, for the complex interlinked objects we have an even better 
approach: zzstructure...)

So, I don't like using Yaml because it's simply too much work for us. :-(

Don't know what to do...

- Benja