My experience is that with both YAML and XML, the key is to have a well-designed schema. The problem isn't YAML or XML, but abuses of them. Most of the criticis

My experience is that with both YAML and XML, the key is to have a well-designed schema. The problem isn't YAML or XML, but abuses of them. Most of the criticisms come from badly-designed schemas. HTML 2.0 was very usable, and there are other XML schemas which are nice. There are a few keys: 1. Don't reinvent constructs. If your XML looks like <element name="foo"><attribute key="bar" value="biff" /> </element>, you've got a problem. It should be <foo bar="biff"/> 2. Provide reasonable defaults. Everything should be optional. 3. Break up files into manageable chunks I wish everything in /etc/ used a common format, like YAML, or a small set of common formats. I also wish for good configuration libraries, which handled: - Parsing / validating YAML config files, command line parameters, environment variables, database overrides, defaults, etc. - Printing pretty error messages - Worked in a few languages (Python, JavaScript, and perhaps C) - Guided developers towards sane designs. Also, if you're putting objects in XML, documents in YAML, or strictly tabular data in either, you're probably doing something wrong. - YAML: Configuration files, objects - XML: Documents - CSV/TSV/TSVX: Tabular data