[yebyen]

I think if you consider the audience of this book might actually be 7 years old, it's fair to leave the line in.

Something something, "today's lucky 10,000" https://xkcd.com/1053/

The reason for the base64 encoding as I understand it, is so that it is clear whether and how the entry needs to be quoted and escaped in your yaml file. A base64 entry contains only alphanumeric(ish) characters. Writing Helm charts is about the hardest mandatory part of managing Kubernetes clusters, and understanding how your secrets are meant to enter the cluster is definitely part of that confusion.

It's an important detail, especially if you know what that means. You are right to ask about the hippo-headed giraffe, "wait, isn't there supposed to be something else here?"

There is! The seven or eight year old reader is not expected to get this on the first read-through though ;)