

Syck vs Psych: Differences and Conversion - arnebrasseur
http://devblog.arnebrasseur.net/2014-02-yaml-syck-vs-psych
An in depth post analyzing the differences between these two YAML implementations for Ruby based on a large real-world data set, with tips on how to convert your data from Syck to Psych.
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dasil003
Great article, but I disagree with the conclusion. Hand-editing YAML is an
absolute mine field. For non-developers editing it is a complete non-starter
as they can and _will_ make mistakes. But even for developers it will make you
pay for your relative ignorance of the spec. Pop quiz, can you tell me what's
wrong with the following YAML snippet without running it through a YAML
parser:

    
    
        FI: Finland
        NO: Norway
        SE: Sweden
        GB: United Kingdom
    

Personally I find YAML to be a powerful serialization format for _sanitized_
ruby data and that's it. Granted there can be major upgrade pains as
demonstrated by this post (and believe me I've wrestled with severe pain from
this upgrade), but I think these changes are likely to be few and far between.
Bottom line is YAML _is_ well-defined even if that spec if impossible for a
human being to comprehend and internalize its nuance, and it has a special
status in Ruby that makes it particularly useful for automation.

But for human readable I say do yourself a favor and stick to TOML.

