I don’t think it’s as clear cut as the article describes. If all you want is to define a few static values, like DB connection details, then it makes sense to u

I don’t think it’s as clear cut as the article describes. If all you want is to define a few static values, like DB connection details, then it makes sense to use something that is easier to parse. However if you’re building another nginx then obviously you’d want something more composable. The problem that the article doesn’t address is that there isn’t a single good common standard. YAML has its own problems, TOML is fine for simple configs but can quickly get less readable when you start having deep nested elements. None of those allow conditional elements. So then you have HCL, which is an abomination and a bunch of other vendor specific formats - most of which don’t have reusable APIs. So do you then create your own format? And in which case your users have to learn yet another config language.