I have been using YAML for awhile and decided I’d like to write a post about it. YAML is an acronym for YAML Ain’t Markup Language and it is a very useful and concise serialization standard. I use YAML all the time in when I am coding PHP projects that require some kind of configuration files. Here is what wiki says about it: YAML syntax was designed to be easily mapped to data types common to most high-level languages: list, hash, and scalar. Its familiar indented outline and lean appearance makes it especially suited for tasks where humans are likely to view or edit data structures,...

Obviously web reporting is nothing really new; one basic approach is this: Aggregate your data and output it in some kind of structured format, usually XML Request this information and generate some visualizations of it Serve these visualizations through a web server Pretty basic stuff. All of the tools that I have seen essentially make one or all of these processes easier. Unfortunately no matter what tools you choose, the rule of engineering stands: Fast, cheap, good – choose two In this context it is more like: Less proprietary code, free software, easy to use/maintain – choose...