from Hacker News

Comparison of configuration file languages (2016)

by aleyan on 10/24/24, 1:32 PM with 16 comments

• by itohihiyt on 10/27/24, 8:00 AM

  I love me an INI. By far, IMO, the best human readable config syntax. Sure it's got some gotchas, like all old formats (CSV) there's no spec. But if I have the choice I'd go INI. It's simple and leaves the choices up to the program that's reading the file, because everything is a string.

  To me there's no difference in this articles argument that with INI people would have to remember about the idiosyncrasies of the python implementation related to comments, and people having to know and learn the correct syntax of TOML. I'd say remembering when and where you can comment is easier too.

  Either way it's personal preference. I do occasionally like to reread this though (because I'm boring): https://github.com/madmurphy/libconfini/wiki/An-INI-critique...

• by OskarS on 10/27/24, 8:37 AM

  More and more the last couple of years, I’ve started to realize that ”configuration languages” are just a bad idea. Please, for the love of all that is holy, just let us use a real programming language. For simple declarative configuration, it’s no more difficult to use Python (or Lua or whatever) than YAML, and for complex configuration (looking at you, YAML files for GitLab CI), it’s an absolute godsend to be able to use real if-statements and for-loops. If security/runtime is a concern, you can sandbox it or use something like Starlark.

  JSON is a fine over-the-wire format, but can’t we leave YAML in the dustbin and just do it ”properly” from now on? Please?

• by oezi on 10/27/24, 8:12 AM

  If JSON would allow comments (and trailing commas would be nice as well), then I think it would be a strong contender for a config format as well.