Metadata syntax (was Universal syntax for Markdown)

[Alan J. Hogan]

On Aug 17, 2011, at 6:17 PM, David Chambers <david.chambers.05 at gmail.com> wrote:


> I'm interested to hear people's thoughts on multiline values and on the unfancy approach to metadata parsing that I (currently) favour.


I agree that:

- multiline values are a must
- arbitrary key/value pairs are a must

When you describe the syntax you envision, I am just thinking, why redefine YAML? (In that case, if you'll allow me a moment of glibness, lets call that syntax YAYAML.)

AFAIK both YAML and JSON allow for representation of the same data types (numbers, strings, arrays, objects/dictionaries). 

If we pick a format as preferred metadata syntax, my vote is for YAML. It's already defined, already implemented, already proven, and fairly natural. Hell, I'm TextMate, for example, the YAML bundle would simply apply to the appropriate section of the Markdown 2 doc (like JavaScript or PHP among HTML)!

Alan