[rickette]

GitHub Actions originally supported HCL (Hashicorp Configuration Language) instead of YAML. But the YAML force was too strong: https://github.blog/changelog/2019-09-17-github-actions-will....

[nothrabannosir]

HCL is same s**, different smell. Equally hamstrung. It’s the reason hashicorp came out with an actually programmable version of the hcl semantics: CDKTF.

[freeplay]

If you have worked with HCL in any serious capacity, you'll be happy they didn't go that route.

Here's some fun examples to see why HCL sucks:

- Create an if/elseif/else statement

- Do anything remotely complex with a for loop (tip: you're probably going to have to use `flatten` a lot)

[oblio]

Stuff like HCL and Ansible YAML makes me want to require mandatory training in Ant contrib tasks for developers creating them:

https://ant-contrib.sourceforge.net/tasks/tasks/if.html

  <if>
    <equals arg1="${foo}" arg2="bar" />
      <then>
      <echo message="The value of property foo is 'bar'" />
    </then>
    <elseif>
      <equals arg1="${foo}" arg2="foo" />
      <then>
        <echo message="The value of property foo is 'foo'" />
      </then>
    </elseif>
    <else>
      <echo message="The value of property foo is not 'foo' or 'bar'" />
    </else>

</if>

https://ant-contrib.sourceforge.net/tasks/tasks/for.html

  <for param="file">
    <path>
      <fileset dir="${test.dir}/mains" includes="*.cpp"/>
    </path>
    <sequential>
      <propertyregex override="yes"
        property="program"  input="@{file}"
        regexp=".*/([^\.]\*)\.cpp" replace="\1"/>
      <mkdir dir="${obj.dir}/${program}"/>
      <mkdir dir="${build.bin.dir}"/>
      <cc link="executable" objdir="${obj.dir}/${program}"
        outfile="${build.bin.dir}/${program}">
        <compiler refid="compiler.options"/>
        <fileset file="@{file}"/>
        <linker refid="linker-libs"/>
      </cc>
    </sequential>
  </for>

Yes, programming with them was as fun as you're imagining.