Do you use ruby or json roles? And why over the other?
Thanks!
JSON. Because last I checked, knife upload only supports JSON 
Nathan Clemons
DevOps Engineer
Moxie Cloud Services (MCS)
O +1.425.467.5075
M +1.360.861.6291
Support for Ruby actually just got added to ChefFS a few days ago. Not in a release yet, but will be in 12.10 barring any huge issues Another in a long line of beers I owe Thom!
We use Ruby, mostly for the fact that we can easily embed comments.
If you use ruby, how do you overcome the vagrant chef_zero issue? From what Seth Vargo said, vagrant chef_zero does not support ruby. I really like using ruby over json because it’s easy to read/edit and like you said embed comments. The big struggle we have now is our development process and vagrant. 
If it’s easier, you can write some Ruby that will generate JSON roles, but
I also use JSON since chef-zero only supports that.
Can you do a knife role show rolename -Fr to output the roles in Ruby format, too?
Nathan Clemons
DevOps Engineer
Moxie Cloud Services (MCS)
O +1.425.467.5075
M +1.360.861.6291
We don’t use our roles with chef_zero. We don’t include roles with cookbooks, and we only use chef_zero for testing. We have one a few occasions tried this, and it wasn’t pretty (we were very invested into roles before Chef Zero was a thing). We did hack up some knife plugin at some point, but it stinks cause you had to remember to run it to “refresh” the json files.
I use ruby, wherever I can for roles. Its easier to read, code, test.
Testing stack is LXC+Goiardi.
best
ranjib
We use Ruby, mostly for the fact that we can easily embed comments.
For what it's worth, Chef permits comments in both databags and JSON roles. Both // single line and /* multi line */ comments are supported.
Cookbooks. Much easier to roll forward or back than roles because they are versions.
I tend to view roles as an anti-pattern in my work flow because of the above, and they are harder to keep in sync across multiple chef servers in an environment.
–Jp Robinson