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i think the problem is it doesn't have easy to find documentation, if any at all, that introduces it as a formal language so everything is just a very hard gues
by kristopolous 3y ago
i think the problem is it doesn't have easy to find documentation, if any at all, that introduces it as a formal language so everything is just a very hard guessing game of easily forgettable syntax.
You know, a list of reserved words, what their functions are, how the structure works, etc ... the kind you'll see if you pick up some "intro to <language X>" book from no-starch or o'reilly or the kind that GNU Awk/sed/dc have.
- navaati 3y agoI don’t understand, isn’t the manpage for jq exactly that, a list of syntax constructs and reserved words (mostly builtin filters) ? If anything, it’s _too_ formal and may be missing some example for more complex usages that combine several features.
- kristopolous 3y agoI hadn't seen it in a long time. There's this wrong assumption that the world remains static. It wasn't like this before.
- s_dev 3y agoI suspect Stephen made a trade off between terseness and power and it being intuitive. Part of the value of jq is that it's effectively a "small program" that can easily be piped in a one liner rather than a program that has clear English keywords as an instruction.