Keep it simple

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Only 1.1. Which everybody has been fiercely clinging onto since 2009, because YAML 1.2 did not seem to consider it a problem that they broke backwards compatibility on that behavior. So now the only way to keep existing YAML files working is for us all to keep pretending YAML 1.2 does not exist.

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I feel I spend more time iterating yaml.
There isn't any tooling that actually helps you write it.

I feel like there is a gap in the market for a solution that uses typescript, typed python or some other type-able scripting language, which then generates the yaml files.
A language that has language servers, intellisense, all the modern dev tools. Schemas are provided as simple type descriptors. And whatever script you write then produces the correct result.
Some sort of framework on top of that to provide an opinionated workflow, and some tooling to lint/validate/produce.
And the result is yaml files which can be checked/diffed against in-place config, and version controlled for consistency.

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XML is extremely verbose.
Again, requires some other tooling to generate (I feel I can point to JavaScript for an example of XML manipulation)

Funwayguy

Jist wait until you have to start fucking around with multiple incompatible versions of python for different targets.

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Hello? Its me, NixOS.

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Because group or host vars are hard?

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That's what ansible-lint is for.

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Reminds me of AutoHotkey

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You mean like ansible-lint or yaml-lint?

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Wtf is SSH and why should I care?

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SSH is a network protocol for making secure connections, allowing remote access to various systems. As for why you should care, if you didn't know what SSH was, then you probably shouldn't care since you aren't the target audience. It's fringe knowledge for me too.

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Are you looking for an editor that can format YAML out-of-the-box or with plugins? In my experience, most editors only support a small number of formats out of the box and extend that functionality with plugins. I have yet to find a solid, production editor without a decent YAML formatter. If you’re using one of the common commercial ones, Red Hat maintains many that work explicitly for Ansible.

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I mean sure or you could just start by using a format that's not so painfully strict with how it's laid out. I miss the good old INI config. It couldn't give two shits how you format it, throw in random spaces random tabs random new lines so long as the value was correct

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I hate ini. Lists stuck in ini.

mosiacmango

NixOS : no dudes, its now raw warbling madness, its great. Just great. So easy. Please read these 17 guides that are outdated every minute to get started.

Ive tried to start using NixOS 3 times now, and it hasent took. Link me an actually good beginner guide and I might believe you.

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Listen. The more painful it is up front, the better you'll feel once you get it.

NixOS & Flakes Book | Home Page

An unofficial and opinionated book for beginners

NixOS & Flakes Book (nixos-and-flakes.thiscute.world)

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Honestly, fuck Ansible.

It's the dialup of automation tools. It was probably amazing 10 years ago.

It's YAML is awful, it scales terribly, it's so fucking slow at literally everything, it gives people who have no clue what they're doing a false sense of confidence.

The number of times I've seen app teams waste the time of support groups and engineers because something went wrong and they didn't have the knowledge to know why and need to waste so many man hours having other people solve it for them. I (the engineer) was added to a chat that had 15 people in it because they, after running ansible, saw errors in their server... So clearly there was a problem with the server... At no point did they question there Ansible job.

Of the various tools I've used, I prefer Salt. The YAML is slightly less ass and it's so much faster while also seeming to scaling better too. It by no means is perfect.

Lemminary

Thanks for including an alternative you'd recommend!

Lemminary

AHK grammar is a fucking mess, honestly.

mosiacmango

Ahh, I didn't realize we had mixed some "git gud" dark souls shit into my devops.

But seriously, I'll give your guide a look. Everyone should taste madness occasionally.