- From: Drew Powers via GitHub <sysbot+gh@w3.org>
- Date: Wed, 01 May 2024 13:24:50 +0000
- To: public-design-tokens-log@w3.org
> It is truly a matter of where the responsibility lies. The question is, are we aiming to define how people are meant to curate a token file OR are we aiming to define how systems are meant to read the file? If this is system based and we don't expect people to be writing these files, then I believe a static file is more appropriate. However, if we believe people will be authoring these files, formulaic niceties like aliasing and others will improve the DX of authoring. 100% agreed! And yes I think we’re thinking about it the same way—where in the process does DTCG fit? If earlier, non-static, if later, static. > I'd argue aliasing a token is the most simple form of computing a token. I see what you mean. But I’ve still included aliasing as a given for static (or non-static) because it does require “work” as you said, but the work is trivial enough to be negligible. Also borrowing from prior art of JSONSchema, OpenAPI, YAML—all have the same concept of aliasing and are largely static by design. But I think that’s the cutoff—beyond that, operations jump into more complex territory. “Static analysis” is a bit of a slippery term when you _really_ peer into it, taking TypeScript as an example. You actually can start to do simple “operations,” and TypeScript will follow up to a point. But very quickly it will get in too deep (e.g. any loop) and won’t be able to statically-analyze on its own anymore. So by that logic, if JSON’s strengths are in describing static data, and we want something more programmatic, I’d probably advocate for outlining a [DSL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain-specific_language) that can describe operations more fluidly, with indirection. Since that’s basically what’s happening anyway, it would be less-indirect, and ideally more user-friendly. JSON is always good for describing a language’s AST, but not for authoring by hand. And I worry a hybrid approach of a “looks like JSON, operates like a programming language” isn’t a very user-friendly design. -- GitHub Notification of comment by drwpow Please view or discuss this issue at https://github.com/design-tokens/community-group/issues/238#issuecomment-2088459877 using your GitHub account -- Sent via github-notify-ml as configured in https://github.com/w3c/github-notify-ml-config
Received on Wednesday, 1 May 2024 13:24:51 UTC