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I think json should allow comments. But there are dangers there - look at how horribly comments get abused in code: * doctests are nonsense, just write tests.
by sophacles 2y ago
I think json should allow comments.
But there are dangers there - look at how horribly comments get abused in code:
* doctests are nonsense, just write tests. (doctests like rusts that just validate example snippets are the closest thing to good I've seen so far, but still make me nervous).
* load bearing comments that code mangling/generation tools rely on (see a whole bunch of generated scripts in your linux systen - DO NOT EDIT BELOW THIS LINE)
* things like modelines in editors that affect how programs interact with the code
* things like html or xml comments that on parsing affect end user program logic.
Comments can be abused, and in something like JSON on the wire I can see systems which take additional info from the comments as part of the primary data input. Often a completely different format... and you end up with something like the front-matter on your markdown files as found in static site generators.
Point being, comments are not a purely benign addition.
- pulsarmx 2y agoHow is abusing comments any different than abusing a top-level property with a key like “__comment”?
- amatecha 2y agoat least a top-level metadata property can be explicitly defined in a .json.schema[0] and formalized, rather than being some kind of ad-hoc pre-processor step you have to evaluate before actually using the JSON data. I didn't even know about that approach before I read your comment but it instantly makes more sense to me in terms of maintainability and interoperability. [0] https://json-schema.org/ https://json-schema.org/
- Cpoll 2y agoI feel like most of your examples of "abuse" are just getting things done. I don't see anything intrinsically wrong with doctests. I also can't see a better way to do "load bearing comments," and I'm not eager to go back to "Step 2: Edit your .bashrc to include foo."
- mschuster91 2y ago> see a whole bunch of generated scripts in your linux systen - DO NOT EDIT BELOW THIS LINE these are mostly a warning sign for humans, to be read as "if you need to modify the script below this line, a) you gotta be knowing what you're doing, we are not held liable for support if you change stuff around there b) please contact us to make sure we didn't miss a legitimate need or c) you're trying to do something in a bad way and there's better ways to do so".
- michaelmior 2y ago> doctests are nonsense, just write tests Why are doctests not tests? > doctests like rusts that just validate example snippets are the closest thing to good I've seen so far Rust's doctests don't seem to be fundamentally different from Python doctests, which is the language I've seen most commonly make use of doctests.