On Tue, 9 Sep 2003, why the lucky stiff wrote:

# 
# Looks like YAML just about.  Save yourself the parsing and go for:
# 

I was thinking the same.  Good idea.

<snip />

# Even better, check out the %y{ ... } patch:
# 
#    http://whytheluckystiff.net/ruby/ruby-1.8.0-yamlstr.patch
# 

I think this is a really nifty patch, but I have a concern.  If Ryan were 
to use this syntax (and your patch), his library would require a modified 
Ruby interpreter, which would severely limit the acceptance and usage of 
the library.  Also, being a one-off patch, we would be basically getting a 
strong-hold on %y{}, which would present problems if the ruby interpreter 
some day implemented %y{} for something else.

Now, you may say "let's just add this to the core ruby interpreter."

My opinion is that if we're going to add special syntax for YAML, we 
should have syntax for XML %xml{} (and potentially CSV %csv{} and other 
formats).  It doesn't make sense to me to implement YAML or XML as a core 
part of the language.  I like the fact that we've got high 
quality libraries for them, and I like the fact that these libraries are 
included with the standard Ruby distribution, but I wouldn't want to see 
them creep into the actual language syntax.

Any other thoughts on this one?

Chad