[jkaplowitz]

The Kubernetes creators never intended this verbose YAML format to be the long-term format for humans to work with directly. Heptio's ksonnet is where they want to go: https://ksonnet.io

No, this is not replacing the YAML under the hood, it's just more convenient for humans as a higher layer.

[malkia]

I found ksonnet, by actually looking for smarter json, jsonnet (which ksonnet is based on). Had little experience, while at Google with borgcfg - and while not the same, it's very similliar in spirit, even has easier to understand evaluation rules (unlike borgcfg, which I could never get fully, or I would understand them when focusing, and then if I haven't used them in a while would completely forget again).