Kirill, nobody buys 0.0.1 - we need 1.0.0

Dear community,

    I recently discovered YAML, and I immediately liked it. Integration
with Ruby is fantastic. I seriously consider using YAML as a standard
in my scientific work (operation of a spectrometer at a major German
research facility), which also means I will impose YAML to a large
user community. Before doing so, however, I would like to have some
assurance that YAML will remain alive for the years to come.

    In my view, the crucial point is C support. Undoubtly, it is much
more enjoyable to use YAML with a scripting language; but good C support
is a must before I can impose a new data format to a heterogeneous
user community. The present situation is less than satisfactory,

    - with Syck well integrated into Ruby, but otherwise declared obsolete,

    - and with libyaml perseverating in 0.0.1 and the website warning
that the API might still drastically change.

    Kirill, in your mail from 2007-12-20 you say

    (1) libyaml is resting, because it already satsfies your needs;
it is robust and fast;

    (2) your local copy contains quite a number of improvements,
including a new API, but it's not yet complete;

    (3) alternatively, one should consider libsyck.

    Let me please comment on this:

    (ad 3) This community is not strong enough to survive the concurrence
of two dormant C libraries. What newcomers need is clear-cut advice which
platform will continue to be supported.

    (ad 1) This means: Your 0.0.1 is worth a 1.0.0 (as others have noted
earlier). Please understand: freezing libyaml at 0.0.1 is disastrous not
only for your contribution, but for YAML at large. Whoever considers YAML
for use with a little less perseverance than me will be deterred by the
fact that a central building block is frozen in what appears to be an early
alpha stage. Please, overcome your overmodesty, rework a little bit the
documentation, add a few comment lines, and release the present library with
a decent version number.

    (ad 2) Release early, release often ... and for doing so, open
a new development branch, once the current branch has been promoted
to 'mature' status.

    Hope you will pardon me for being so bold in my first posting
to this list -

    best regards, and congratulations for the work done so far,

Joachim

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