10:55 <discocaml> <rgrinberg> There's no single configuration language that would make everyone happy. I've worked with json based configs and they were bad in their own way. Json could be more compelling for dune if we had a json schema for better editor integration to go along with it. I have no idea how feasible such a thing would be though.

12:36 <companion_cube> you'd at least want yaml, I think

12:36 <companion_cube> writing json by hand is a massive pain

12:55 <discocaml> <deepspacejohn> TBH, I don't believe that the dune format is really a problem. It has tradeoffs, but they overall aren't worse than the tradeoffs you get in other config languages. If there was a real demand for an alternative format, someone would have already written a yaml-to-dune converter to bridge the gap.

12:58 <discocaml> <deepspacejohn> I think the syntax is just an easy target for blame for people when the real problems are deeper.

13:05 <discocaml> <bluddy5> It's another barrier. OCaml is a niche language as it is. The more things look familiar to someone taking a quick look, the better the chance they'll dig in further, and maybe buy in.

13:06 <discocaml> <bluddy5> s-exp is really not bad once you dig into it, but that's the problem -- you need to dig in. There's nothing fundamentally wrong there -- it's just yet another alien thing for most programmers.

13:11 <discocaml> <dubious245> I think dunes s expression arent that hard to write by hand compared to Json where I am always like wait does this need to be a curly brace here or does a comma go here. My issues with dune are more about how its learning curve of the is not very incremental. Your knowledge of the system doesnt grow in parts as you look up the things you need, either you dont know how it works or you waste time learning the whole system in depth at once to

13:12 <discocaml> <dubious245> I think dunes s expression arent that hard to write by hand compared to Json where I am always like wait does this need to be a curly brace here or does a comma go here. My issues with dune are more about how its learning curve is not very incremental. Your knowledge of the system doesnt grow in parts as you look up the things you need, either you dont know how it works or you waste time learning the whole system in depth at once to get it

13:13 <discocaml> <contificate> maybe just need a dune language server or something

13:14 <discocaml> <dubious245> Probably.

13:28 <discocaml> <contificate> the JetBrains folk could make a good job of it I expect, wonder what became of that

13:36 <discocaml> <dubious245> Sitting down to read the docs in full. I guess its pretty clear Dune was made by Jane Street since the docs are constantly telling you to install their standard lib.

13:43 <discocaml> <contificate> just become a contributor

14:05 <discocaml> <dubious245> I very well might at this rate.

15:15 <discocaml> <JM> We have snippets and a tree-sitter grammar which (in neovim at least) can go a long way.

15:18 <discocaml> <contificate> I don't find `dune` too difficult, but maybe people would fall for the illusion of more static information (as in an IDE with tooltips etc.) before `dune build` and finding it doesn't do what they want

19:20 <discocaml> <dubious245> Also for some reason a lot of helpful information and basic overviews are under the command-line Interface page? Like for making command line interfaces not for dune's cli.