3 ms·

I'm a big YAGNI proponent but format version numbers are not something I would dare to YAGNI.

• paulddraper 3y ago
  Even if it's varint separated messages?
  • catiopatio 3y ago
    You stick a magic number and a version number at the top of the file and call it done. It’s trivial and buys you a great deal. The magic means it’s possible to identify the file type. Maybe you’ll add a tool later that operates on multiple types of files. The version means you can evolve the contents in non-backwards-compatible ways, while maintaining the ability to read/parse the old version. It’s a pain in the ass to add a magic or version number later; there’s a reason why nearly every file format on the planet has both.
    • paulddraper 3y ago
      > nearly every file format on the planet XML JSON YML TOML
      • catiopatio 3y ago
        <?xml version="1.1" encoding="UTF-8" ?> The others are serialization formats, like protobuf — they’re not file formats.
        • paulddraper 3y ago
          XML prolog is optional. > they're not file formats Brb, gonna delete all my files without file formats
          • catiopatio 3y ago
            If you prefer to ship fragile binary file formats for no reason other than finding it too onerous to define something as trivial as an eight-byte file header, that’s silly, but nobody is going to stop you. If you’re going to use text-based serialization formats as your justification for the decision, however, I’d suggest you look into all the fun bugs, security issues, and weird edges cases that arise from parsers having to make a best guess at character encoding and file format when all you have to work with is the file extension, maybe a byte order mark, and heuristics over the file contents.