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It's neat that Hyprland lets you define layouts in its config but I like niri's approach. It uses KDL (an established document / config language) and slightly

by nickjj 3mo ago

It's neat that Hyprland lets you define layouts in its config but I like niri's approach. It uses KDL (an established document / config language) and slightly extends it to add useful things like being able to include files. For example, here's mine: https://github.com/nickjj/dotfriedrice/blob/master/.config/niri/config.kdl https://github.com/nickjj/dotfriedrice/blob/master/.config/n... What you end up with is a config file that's natural to read with no prior knowledge about anything and if you want to look something specific up, you know it's officially documented and not some home grown pattern someone created. There's a certain amount of comfort and stability you get with a "what you see is what you get" approach. I never felt like I needed variables, conditions, functions or loops with niri's config.

WhyNotHugo 3mo ago
I wouldn't call KDL "established"; it's honestly pretty niche. It looks _similar_ to pre-existing configuration formats, but KDL is very picky about syntax. I.e.: single word string MUST be quoted. In this same space, https://codeberg.org/emersion/scfg/ https://codeberg.org/emersion/scfg/ is pretty widely used. The curious thing about scfg is that it's not really a "new" format: the syntax described has been in use by different tools for decades. They just didn't call it scfg, and it's mostly the name itself that's new.
- eviks 3mo ago
  > picky about syntax. I.e.: single word string MUST be quoted. Seems like the opposite: Example from kdl website without quotes package { name my-pkg Example from scfg with quotes train "Shinkansen" {
  - WhyNotHugo 3mo ago
    Perhaps it was a niri-specific thing (although they claim it's KDL), but it rejected simple strings without quotes.
    - eviks 3mo ago
      Ah, it was the legacy version of KDL, the current one got rid of this quotation noise
- nickjj 3mo ago
  It is picky, but picky is good. It's explicit which creates uniformity. For example with niri, if you forget quotes on a string value, you get this error. $ niri validate Error: × error loading config ├─▶ error parsing ╰─▶ error parsing KDL Error: × identifiers cannot be used as arguments ╭─[config.kdl:42:1] 42 │ // Disable acceleration. 43 │ accel-profile flat · ──┬─ · ╰── unexpected identifier 44 │ } ╰──── help: consider enclosing in double quotes ".."

by nickjj 3mo ago

WhyNotHugo 3mo ago

I wouldn't call KDL "established"; it's honestly pretty niche. It looks _similar_ to pre-existing configuration formats, but KDL is very picky about syntax. I.e.: single word string MUST be quoted. In this same space, https://codeberg.org/emersion/scfg/ https://codeberg.org/emersion/scfg/ is pretty widely used. The curious thing about scfg is that it's not really a "new" format: the syntax described has been in use by different tools for decades. They just didn't call it scfg, and it's mostly the name itself that's new.

eviks 3mo ago
> picky about syntax. I.e.: single word string MUST be quoted. Seems like the opposite: Example from kdl website without quotes package { name my-pkg Example from scfg with quotes train "Shinkansen" {
- WhyNotHugo 3mo ago
  Perhaps it was a niri-specific thing (although they claim it's KDL), but it rejected simple strings without quotes.
  - eviks 3mo ago
    Ah, it was the legacy version of KDL, the current one got rid of this quotation noise
nickjj 3mo ago
It is picky, but picky is good. It's explicit which creates uniformity. For example with niri, if you forget quotes on a string value, you get this error. $ niri validate Error: × error loading config ├─▶ error parsing ╰─▶ error parsing KDL Error: × identifiers cannot be used as arguments ╭─[config.kdl:42:1] 42 │ // Disable acceleration. 43 │ accel-profile flat · ──┬─ · ╰── unexpected identifier 44 │ } ╰──── help: consider enclosing in double quotes ".."