Critique of YAML Anchors in GitHub Actions: Redundancy and Complexity Concerns
By
woodruffw
Hand-rolled, kettle-boiled, baked to perfection. Worth every minute at the bakery.
Summary
The article argues against GitHub's implementation of YAML anchors in GitHub Actions, stating that they are redundant with existing functionality, complicate the CI/CD data model, and fail to provide unique utility due to GitHub's implementation choices. The author maintains that the previous lack of YAML anchor support was beneficial for workflow clarity and maintainability.
Key quotes
· 3 pulledYAML anchors in GitHub Actions are (1) redundant with existing functionality, (2) introduce a complication to the data model that makes CI/CD human and machine comprehension harder, and (3) are not even uniquely useful because GitHub has chosen not to support the one feat
for a very long time, GitHub Actions lacked support for YAML anchors. This was a good thing.
Programming, philosophy, pedaling.
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