Attributes Styles in Policyfiles

attributes-dsls.md

It just occurred to me that it's weird that roles have a totally different DSL for attributes than cookbooks, and we should take a moment to think about how attributes should work in policyfiles. In this gist are two examples, one "role style" and one "cookbook style". Let me know what you like best (but remember there's no notifications for gist comments so you have to use some other medium to make sure I see your comments).

cb_style.rb

name "cookbook-attribute-style-policy"
run_list "foo"
default_source :community

# This is the cookbook attribute DSL. You get auto-vivification:
default["abc"]["def"]["ghi"] = "xyz"

# basic attribute setting:
default["foo"] = "bar"

# you can pass in literal data structures (as long as they're one level deep)
default["baz"] = {
  "more_nested_stuff" => "yup"
}
default["baz"]["an_array"] = ["a", "b", "c"]

role_style.rb

name "role-style-policy-attrs"
run_list "foo"
default_source :community

# This is the same as the role DSL. You have to set
# everything at once (more or less). There is no auto-vivify
default_attributes "foo" => "bar",
  "baz" => {
    "more_nested_stuff" => "yup",
    "an_array" => ["a", "b", "c"]
  }