[Hamuko]

>Having the weird syntax for replacing things

Isn't the "weird syntax" just either Yaml files or just JSON Patches, which is a pretty easy standard?

>having to look at a bunch of different files to see what is going on

I consider that a feature, not a bug. prod/larger-memory-request.yaml makes it much easier for me to see what goes into deploying the prod environment instead of for example the test environment.

[cortesoft]

By "weird syntax" I mean stuff like "patchesJson6902" or "configMapGenerator" or "patchesStrategicMerge" where you have to know what each field means and how they work.

A template is much easier to read. I had zero experience with go templating, but was able to figure out what it all meant just by looking at the templates... they still looked like kubernetes resources

As for looking at a bunch of different files, if you like having a "larger-memory-request" file, you can still do that with helm... you can use as many values files as you want, just include them in precedence order. You can have your "larger-memory-request" values file.

[miiiiiike]

That just using Kustomize. There’s a difference between learning curve and frustration post learning curve. Kustomize isn’t that bad, Helm comes with far more headaches, especially if you need to do any kind of inheritance.

Keep your customizations flat and compile them to yaml+grep to find out what’s getting overridden and where.

[ahoka]

Do you have any really complex Helm template? It either becomes an unreadable mess or you end up with basically manifest snippets in your values file.