Framework metadata

[Aurélien Gâteau]

On Thu, 19 Dec 2013 12:13:08 +0200, Giorgos Tsiapaliokas wrote:
> I definitely like the idea but I don't like xml/rdf. Why don't we 
> just
> use json? 

Because DOAP is an existing format, so it avoids reinventing the wheel.

If we decide we want to reinvent the wheel, then let's use YAML rather
than JSON. JSON is fine as a serialize and data transfer format, but it
is bad as a document format for a few reasons:

- Easy to get wrong: have you ever had to add an item to an array, and
   got a weird failure because of a trailing comma? or a missing comma
   because you reordered the array?
- Requires quotes everywhere
- No support for comments
- Difficult to read when the document is deeply nested: the end of a
   JSON file is a mess of '"', ']', ',' and "}"

> Qt is already using json and the logical-module-structure [7] of
>  kde-build-metadata is using json.

Indeed, kde-build-metadata is using json. I consider this a mistake, 
for
the reasons I pointed there (especially the lack of support for
comments). I actually suggested YAML when it was proposed.

Aurélien