Post #3377969

2026-04-25 19:46 UTC

If your program's configuration file format is JSON, you're openly advertising that you care far more about programming convenience in reading and loading your configuration file than you do about the people operating your software. "You can generate our JSON with software from something else", yeah, no. You've told me what your priorities are and I'm going to believe you. I would rather run software that actually cares about the people running it.

Replies (6)

@cks@mastodon.social 2026-04-25 21:19

I should say this out loud: a program's configuration files and configuration file format is part of its user interface. Much like other user interfaces, you cannot necessarily use a generic 'UI' for your configuration files without inflicting pain on people operating your software. Yes, this means that sometimes you have to design and build your own configuration file format, much like you may have to build other UIs for your program.

Open ##3377970
@untitaker@gts.woodland.cafe 2026-04-25 19:48

@cks@mastodon.social json5 is fine in your book, right?

Open ##3377975
@davecb@hachyderm.io 2026-04-25 19:58

@cks@mastodon.social I'm inclined to think the same about yaml. It gets used for configuration in the sense that any extension language can be used as a configuration language. The syntax is so that it reminds me of the time some idiot added if-then-else to xml itself. adult minor

Open ##3377979
@gumnos@mastodon.bsd.cafe 2026-04-25 20:06

@cks@mastodon.social It's one of the things I love about UCL-style syntax…pretty much every time I've encountered it, the syntax feels like it was targeted more at users rather than devs. https://github.com/vstakhov/libucl

Open ##3377984
@oclsc@mstdn.ca 2026-04-26 02:25

@cks@mastodon.social At least it's not XML. Solaris SMF, I'm looking at you.

Open ##3377993
@maswan@mastodon.acc.sunet.se 2026-04-26 11:36

@cks@mastodon.social Yeah, this was the case a while ago with xml too. I kinda prefer JSON over YAML, but that's more a bit of YAML being terrible than JSON being suitable as a configuration language.

Open ##3377994