> I still don't know have a clear picture as
> to where or how this will be used later

When you are learning a language that really isn't important.  The most 
important thing is understanding that you can do something and how to do 
it--not why it is important.

Later, when you are writing a program, a light bulb may go off in your 
head, and you suddenly realize that some little thing you learned about 
in the past will work perfectly in your code.  Or, it may be that such a 
light bulb may never go off, and the only way you will ever understand 
how to apply what you learned is by reading other people's code and 
seeing how they used YAML or some other feature you learned about in 
their code, and then you copy that idea in your code.

You can think of YAML as a lightweight database if you want.  If you 
don't need all the features of a full blown database, then you can use 
YAML instead.  Or, you can think of YAML as a JSON or XML 
substitute--and then ask yourself why anyone would use JSON or XML.

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