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True/false is more widely used than yes/no in this context. The fact that the author felt the need to explain that yes/no maps to true/false indicates that they

True/false is more widely used than yes/no in this context. The fact that the author felt the need to explain that yes/no maps to true/false indicates that they also believe this to be the case. The only time I can remember seeing yes/no used in a format like this is YAML, and that caused problems[1]. [1]: https://hitchdev.com/strictyaml/why/implicit-typing-removed/ https://hitchdev.com/strictyaml/why/implicit-typing-removed/

yellowapple 4y ago
The Norway problem came to mind for me, too, but I don't think there's much opportunity for that to arise here given that strings are quoted. Meanwhile, there's plenty of other precedent for yes/no instead of true/false; shell scripts come to mind. I don't know if I prefer this over treating everything as a string and letting readers/writers decide on their own how to parse things, but it seems like a much more reasonable approach than YAML's.
- RadiozRadioz 4y ago
  Yes, I agree, the format described here is more reasonable than YAML and would not suffer from the Norway problem. I'm interested in what you mean when you mention shell scripts; I find it more idiomatic to write: if [ true ]; then echo test; fi Over if [ yes ]; then echo test; fi Because the behavior is more consistent when you try to use it in other constructs: while true; do echo test; done Versus yes | while read _; do echo test; done Or maybe while yes | :; do echo test; done There's also no "no" command. To get that effect, you'd have to confusingly write: yes no Is there a particular instance of yes/no in shell scripting that you had in mind?
  - yellowapple 4y ago
    > Is there a particular instance of yes/no in shell scripting that you had in mind? Yes! I see them all the time in various build scripts, especially for Slackware packages / SlackBuild scripts; it's a pretty common convention to use yes/no values for enabling/disabling (respectively) various build options. OpenBSD's rc.conf(.local) also uses "NO" to indicate that a service/daemon should be disabled entirely; for example, the default httpd_flags=NO in rc.conf entirely disables httpd - unless, of course, you re-enable it later with httpd_flags= in rc.conf.local. "YES" is also sometimes used, e.g. library randomization being enabled by default via library_aslr=YES.

yellowapple 4y ago

The Norway problem came to mind for me, too, but I don't think there's much opportunity for that to arise here given that strings are quoted. Meanwhile, there's plenty of other precedent for yes/no instead of true/false; shell scripts come to mind. I don't know if I prefer this over treating everything as a string and letting readers/writers decide on their own how to parse things, but it seems like a much more reasonable approach than YAML's.

RadiozRadioz 4y ago
Yes, I agree, the format described here is more reasonable than YAML and would not suffer from the Norway problem. I'm interested in what you mean when you mention shell scripts; I find it more idiomatic to write: if [ true ]; then echo test; fi Over if [ yes ]; then echo test; fi Because the behavior is more consistent when you try to use it in other constructs: while true; do echo test; done Versus yes | while read _; do echo test; done Or maybe while yes | :; do echo test; done There's also no "no" command. To get that effect, you'd have to confusingly write: yes no Is there a particular instance of yes/no in shell scripting that you had in mind?
- yellowapple 4y ago
  > Is there a particular instance of yes/no in shell scripting that you had in mind? Yes! I see them all the time in various build scripts, especially for Slackware packages / SlackBuild scripts; it's a pretty common convention to use yes/no values for enabling/disabling (respectively) various build options. OpenBSD's rc.conf(.local) also uses "NO" to indicate that a service/daemon should be disabled entirely; for example, the default httpd_flags=NO in rc.conf entirely disables httpd - unless, of course, you re-enable it later with httpd_flags= in rc.conf.local. "YES" is also sometimes used, e.g. library randomization being enabled by default via library_aslr=YES.