Always find it funny that software developers are stuck in the 1980's when it comes to making documents. Meanwhile normal people use programs to point and click with the new-fangled technology called "a mouse", and create richer documents that convey more information easier, and they do it faster. I guess when you get paid to write in code, it only makes sense to write more code.
Don't let me deprive you of a laugh, god knows we could all use one. But software developers are stuck on the benefits of source control and the workflows it provides. I'll take a pull request and a code review over "normal people" emailing each other attachments called "Q3 Presentation v7.final.final2.reallyfinalthistime.ppt" any day.
I like it when the two paradigms can be combined. Where you (or a non-developer) can set up a dashboard by point-and-click, but in the end there’s a source file that can be downloaded, revision controlled, deployed to different environments.
And in the best of worlds, that file format is simple enough to be understood in code reviews and scenarios where you want to generate them programmatically, not a huge incomprehensible json or xml.
I find this to be only even more important in 2026 where you could then also let a code agent generate the dashboard (any agent, any dashboarding software – no need for bespoke agent embeddings in the dashboard UI).
The mouse clickers can click their mouses and those of us (humans and machines) who prefers working with text files can do that. A good file format should take both into account.