As I mentioned here, I had a choice of using either XML or YAML for the configuration files in the new version of ESMS. YAML won for two reasons:

1. It is much more lightweight and looks natural. Big configuration files in XML become complex and cluttered, while YAML scales admirably in this respect.
2. The current de-facto XML implementation in Ruby is REXML, which I dislike. REXML is useful for employing XML as a serialization format, but is less good as a configuration file reader, because its error handling is very bad. On the other hand, Syck (the built-in YAML parser / emitter in Ruby) is easy to use, fast and has good error handling and reporting.

The following are good resources for YAML in Ruby:

1. Yaml cookbook - shows probably all you’ll ever need to understand how Yaml entities map to Ruby code. Very useful.
2. Yaml.rb docs - A reference manual with examples for the Yaml.rb library.
3. YAML specification - from the official YAML website (yaml.org). A crisp yet well written reference to the YAML syntax and semantics.

Related posts:

1. JSON is YAML, but YAML is not JSON
2. XML or YAML for configuration files
3. Book review: “Ruby Cookbook” by L. Carlson and L. Richardson
4. Book review: “The Ruby way” by Hal Fulton
5. Book review: “Programming Ruby, 2nd Ed.” by Dave Thomas and Andy Hunt

This entry was posted on Friday, April 13th, 2007 at 3:46 pm and is filed under Ruby. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.