# Clark Evans ![[50 Resources/51 Attachments/51.03 Public/2026-05-04 Clark Evans.jpg|400]] Clark Evans is an American software developer best known as the creator of [[Yet Another Markup Language (YAML)|YAML]], the human-readable data serialization format. He designed YAML in 2001 alongside co-authors Ingy döt Net and Oren Ben-Kiki, aiming to create a data format that was easier to read and write than XML while remaining powerful enough for complex data structures. Evans has been involved in various open source projects and data format standardization efforts. YAML, originally named "Yet Another Markup Language," was later given a recursive acronym ("YAML Ain't Markup Language") to emphasize its focus on data serialization rather than document markup. ## Key Contributions - **[[Yet Another Markup Language (YAML)|YAML]]**: Created the human-readable data serialization format (2001) - **YAML Specification**: Co-authored and maintained the YAML specification - **Open source advocacy**: Contributed to various data format and serialization projects ## YAML Co-Authors Clark Evans designed YAML together with: - **Ingy döt Net**: Co-designer, active maintainer - **Oren Ben-Kiki**: Co-designer ## Quotes <!-- QueryToSerialize: LIST FROM #type/quote AND [[Clark Evans]] WHERE public_note = true SORT file.name ASC --> ## Books <!-- QueryToSerialize: LIST FROM #type/book AND [[Clark Evans]] WHERE public_note = true SORT file.name ASC --> ## References - https://yaml.org - https://github.com/yaml ## Related - [[Yet Another Markup Language (YAML)]] - [[JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)]] - [[Tom's Obvious Minimal Language (TOML)]]