JSON vs YAML vs TOML vs CSV vs Protobuf: Developer's Guide

Short summary

Guide to choosing the right data format by matching format to constraints. JSON is universal but verbose and slow at scale; YAML is readable but prone to type-coercion bugs (e.g., 'NO' parses as false in YAML 1.1); TOML adds explicit typing and datetime support for safer configuration files.

• •JSON dominates APIs and document storage but struggles parsing 100KB+ payloads at high throughput
• •YAML excels at human-readable config but harbors production footguns: YAML 1.1 coerces 'NO' to false, leading zeros to octal
• •TOML fixes YAML's type ambiguity and comment support without indentation sensitivity; ideal for tool configs like Cargo.toml

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