https://kotlinlang.org logo
Join Slack
Powered by
<@U0B8UKF8R> let's discuss the punchline here ( <h...
# github-workflows-kt
p
@jmfayard let's discuss the punchline here ( https://github.com/krzema12/github-workflows-kt/pull/510)
Thanks for bring it, first of all! My feedback: the punchline is not "punchy" enough, and I think the grammar is a bit off. I'm thinking of something simpler, like "Type-safe and pleasant GitHub Actions workflows development!" or replace "pleasant" with "YAML-free". But then it's not obvious for everyone why YAML is bad. I know people that don't see a problem with it
j
You describe the WHAT? not the WHY? Type safe is a solution. A solution to which problem? It's my experience that people don't care about your solution until they are acutely aware that there is a problem that need to be solved. Yes that's basic but you have spent hundreds of hours with your solution, the problem is oblivious for you but probably not for your audience. So what's the WHY?
Obviously it is also useful to have a WHAT. The point is that the what can change while the WHY shouldn't. For example we currently have a Gradle module to convert the existing workflow. Tomorrow that can become a cli. Or a web tool.
p
Ok. The "why" is IMO convenience of developing the workflows, is it right? Kotlin, type-safety and not using YAML are already the parts of "what"/"how"
j
Yes the why is the convenience. Even better the why is the pain felt by the developer who try to write a workflow the standard way, in the words the developer use to describe this pain. If you can describe that pain accurately you have the why and you have the develoepr’s attention
l
IFHYAML. I don't know why we have entire programs written using yaml instead of actual programming languages. I have no clue how YAML works, how to reference everything and how to maintain that
j
I don’t have the one-liner, but I would say that with the poor knowledge and IDE support of YAML it’s always an hit and miss process to write github workflows, with more misses that hits, and each iteration takes a while, so it’s wasting a lot of the developer’s time.
p
@jmfayard could you elaborate on the “poor knowledge”? is it about your knowledge of YAML?
j
I mean that JSON is quite simple in its syntax and is mostly well understood. By contrast YAML has lots of corner cases people are mostly not aware of, in order to make it look more elegant than JSON.
“YAML looks good but is hard to write” could be a part of the punchline :)
p
for me: everything is a string + I need to be extra-careful about the indent
Ok, I came up with these slogans: • You deserve better than YAML! • Skip the limitations of YAML! • Don't torture yourself with YAML! • You won't get back to YAML! Does any of these resonate with you?
j
I prefer the last one
p
Open in Slack
PreviousNext
Powered by