[chef-dev] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Dialect support and loading enhancements

[Brad Knowles < >]

On Sep 19, 2013, at 7:16 PM, Adam Jacob 
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 wrote:

> I don't know; what little I understand about language learning says it only 
> holds for dialects you know. If you struggle to learn English, I don't 
> propose you switch to French as a simpler glide path.

Some languages are simply easier than others.  My wife and I lived almost 
eight years in Belgium, and despite multiple attempts to the contrary, I 
never managed more than just a smattering of French -- just enough to get me 
in trouble with taxi drivers.  In contrast, my wife and I spent a sum total 
of about three weeks in Italy (spread over multiple occasions), and to this 
day I still swear that I learned and used more Italian in those three weeks 
than I used French in almost eight years in Belgium.

For me, Italian is relatively easy.  German is relatively easy.  Dutch and 
Flemish sound like a cat hacking up a hairball, but they're close enough to 
German and English that what I've learned of them came fairly easy.  What 
little I know of Spanish, came pretty easily.  But French?  French was one of 
the hardest things I ever tried to learn.

> If you come in alone,  starting with YAML for recipe syntax is a mistake - 
> you need your baby language skills to grow with you, and the complexity of 
> the holy trinity is not high in chef.  How much of your simplification do 
> you really think comes from dialects, and how much from cookbook structure 
> simplification?

Cookbook structure is one thing that I think would be relatively easy to 
simplify and would positively impact almost everyone.

YAML support would not be of much help to anyone who is already a 
knowledgeable and talented programmer, whether they know Ruby or not.  But 
for those of us who are NOT talented in that area, YAML support could be a 
godsend.

--
Brad Knowles 
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LinkedIn Profile: <http://tinyurl.com/y8kpxu>