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TOML (lemmy.ml)
submitted 2 days ago by skepller@lemmy.world to c/programmerhumor@lemmy.ml
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/43529621

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[-] CreamyJalapenoSauce@piefed.social 30 points 2 days ago

Not-so-fun fact: if you're transferring a yaml or toml file and the transfer is incomplete, the receiving app may not even know! Yaml and toml both have a good chance of being apparently valid when cut off randomly. This doesn't impact JSON because of the enclosing {} or [].

[-] Ephera@lemmy.ml 38 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Counterpoints:

  • TOML is intended for configuration, not for data serialization, so you shouldn't be sending it over the wire in all too crazy ways anyways.
  • Most protocols will have a built-in way of knowing when the whole content has been transferred, typically by putting a content length into the header.
  • Having to wait until the closing } or ] can also be a disadvantage of JSON, since you cannot stream it, i.e. start processing the fields/elements before the whole thing has arrived. (You probably still don't want to use TOML for that, though. JSONL, CSV or such are a better idea.)
[-] CreamyJalapenoSauce@piefed.social 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I'm only being pedantic. Toml is not bad. Yaml I personally don't like because I don't approve of semantically required whitespace but I know I'm in the minority there.

  • It's not the norm in smaller companies, but big companies can use config servers where an app will retrieve its config on startup over the network. To be fair, I think they fall back to a platform specific encoding though.
  • Better hope it's built in. I don't remember the last time I verified a Content-Length was accurate. Also this generally applies to networking; disk writes don't get this same verification especially if a process is killed mid-write.
  • True point, no real notes. I've recently been dealing with streaming JSON for AI, it's SOO verbose for the few tokens that come across in each message. I don't know how gRPC wasn't chosen, or at least made an option, but oh well.

You make good, valid points and I know I'm talking about edge cases that require the stars to align to break. It reminds me of an old, not-quite-relevant-but-oh-well saying "a 'one in a million' chance at 1GHz happens every millisecond." The law of large numbers isn't always on our side.

[-] Decq@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago

Whitespace being part of semantics is always a bad design decision. You're not alone in this. I wish this was more widely accepted. But alas, it's not. For a configuration language I can accept it a bit more. But for a programming language it's a big faux pas in my opinion (looking at you python).

this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2026
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