YAML’s excesses are exactly why a real programming language is preferable to a mere serialization format. Aliases and overrides are only useful in YAML because

YAML’s excesses are exactly why a real programming language is preferable to a mere serialization format. Aliases and overrides are only useful in YAML because it is not a real programming language. As for error messages, I don’t think that using a real programming language forces the error messages to be bad, or to be too generic. If the error messages are not good it is only because nobody has put in the time and elbow grease to make them good, not because of any fundamental limitation of turing–complete languages.