Re: [community-group] [Format] Object vs Array (#55)

@kevinmpowell Ah! I just realised this issue is referenced from the tokens chapter, not the groups one. I had mistakenly assumed it was about groups. Sorry for any confusion caused!

I certainly agree that properties within tokens shouldn't need a predictable order, so also agree that tokens should only ever be objects.

For _groups_ I think there could potentially be value in being able to order the tokens and/or groups within them (and that's what my proposals above were for):

* It might allow teams to have a consistent ordering of tokens across design tools, docs and in code.
* For style guides or other documentation being generated from token files, it would give authors control over how sections are ordered.
* There may be things like brand colors where it's desirable to list them in the same order as they appear in brand guidelines, and that might not be in order of lightness or something like that.

That being said, these are hunches. The real-world demand for this kind of stuff is unproven at the moment (unless someone is able to offer evidence to the contrary). Also, as you point out, tools can probably cover many uses by having the ability to sort tokens based on various criteria when displaying them to users.

I'm therefore leaning towards only having object groups, and thus no explicit ordering, in our first version of the spec.

If the need for ordering arises later on, we can re-consider appraches like the ones I proposed or your `sortOrder` property idea. Either of could be added without breaking backwards compatibility.

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Received on Tuesday, 14 September 2021 22:00:01 UTC