logoalt Hacker News

outworlder • yesterday at 8:24 PM • 2 replies • view on HN

> It's very error prone to describe a hierarchy of versioned software packages and configuration with shell scripts and yaml.

We have a multitude of configuration/markup languages all doing the exact same thing.

We have solved this problem in the 60s: S-Expressions. Should have just used that for everything. Configuration, code, websites, you name it. Infinitely extendable, easy to parse.


Replies

jimbokun • today at 1:17 AM

Going in a completely different direction, Haskell could make a nice, powerful configuration language.

If it compiles, it’s almost certainly correct.

devin • yesterday at 8:36 PM

I'm a lisp nerd, but why do you say sexps are the answer here? I think the point of a lot of configuration formats is that they don't want their configuration to also be a full-fledged programming language.

➕ show 3 replies