YAML vs JSON

YAML vs JSON is something very much not settled in Perl, and I will admit I tend to be in the middle of that. I would advice that either is going to get you about as much community traction. I'd make the decision based on the various pros and cons of the formats. I break down the various data serializing options like so (I'm going to community wiki this so people can add to it):

YAML Pros

• Human friendly, people write basic YAML without even knowing it
• WYSIWYG strings
• Expressive (it has the TMTOWDI nature)
• Expandable type/metadata system
• Perl compatible data types
• Portable
• Familiar (a lot of the inline and string syntax looks like Perl code)
• Good implementations if you have a compiler (YAML::XS)
• Good ability to dump Perl data
• Compact use of screen space (possible, you can format to fit in one line)

YAML Cons

• Large spec
• Unreliable/incomplete pure Perl implementations
• Whitespace as syntax can be contentious.

JSON Pros

• Human readable/writable
• Small spec
• Good implementations
• Portable
• Perlish syntax
• YAML 1.2 is a superset of JSON
• Compact use of screen space
• Perl friendly data types
• Lots of things handle JSON

JSON Cons

• Strings are not WYSIWYG
• No expandability
• Some Perl structures have to be expressed ad-hoc (objects & globs)
• Lack of expressibility

XML Pros

• Widespread use
• Syntax familiar to web developers
• Large corpus of good XML modules
• Schemas
• Technologies to search and transform the data
• Portable

XML Cons

• Tedious for humans to read and write
• Data structures foreign to Perl
• Lack of expressibility
• Large spec
• Verbose

Perl/Data::Dumper Pros

• No dependencies
• Surprisingly compact (with the right flags)
• Perl friendly
• Can dump pretty much anything (via DDS)
• Expressive
• Compact use of screen space
• WYSIWYG strings
• Familiar

Perl/Data::Dumper Cons

• Non-portable (to other languages)
• Insecure (without heroic measures)
• Inscrutable to non-Perl programmers

Storable Pros

• Compact? (don't have numbers to back it up)
• Fast? (don't have numbers to back it up)

Storable Cons

• Human hostile
• Incompatible across Storable versions
• Non-portable (to other languages)

https://stackoverflow.com/a/1877695