The person that creates the config file does not necessarily choose the config file format. In the example, github chose YAML and everyone using github actions must use it. YAML is error prone, as everyone that tests with Python is finding out as the add Python 3.10 to their regression tests. This is a plea to organizations like github to stop choosing YAML.
As not a Python programmer, I'm struggling to understand the issue.
Your (or blogger's) claim is that GitHub misparses the YAML actions config when it comes specifically to Python? Or that YAML is inherently inadequate to the task of representing Python's necessary actions?
But now we discover that 3.10 is parsed as a float, just like the other ones were. But the problem is that 3.10 becomes 3.1, the equivalent float value! With 3.9 we didn't notice this problem.
I'm not sure what the name for this problem is.
It's something like.. an unfaithful but unintentionally working representation. Until it doesn't work anymore. The solution in YAML is to quote the values so that they become strings as intended.
How is that different from other formats? Take JSON:
{"python_versions": [3.8, 3.9, 3.10]}
This is a problem in any config language that doesn't enforce types, and jf it does enforce types, you should've used quotes already (like you really should've been before 3.10 was added to the list).
Similar problems also exist in many config formats with scientific notation (2e345) or hexadecimal notation (0x12345) or octal notation (012345, no that's not a decimal number in many programming languages and config formats!).
What commonly supported alternative would you suggest for this use case?
