On Tue, Dec 03, 2002 at 11:29:34AM -0800, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > On Tue, 3 Dec 2002, magenta wrote: > > > > User preferences are an entirely different matter. I totally agree that > > the user should be able to override default behaviors, but environment > > variables are such a crappy way of doing this. > > Why? Environment variables are in many ways more powerful than config > files, and can be equally easily edited (think of your ".bashrc" as the > config file for environment variables).
Because it can get pretty unwieldy, and you end up needing to write a bunch of wrapper scripts in order to configure each individual application. By having, for example, ~/.dri/default for the default configuration and ~/.dri/linuxq3 and ~/.dri/armagetron and so on for per-application overrides, it makes things a hell of a lot easier for the user. > I agree that using _bare_ environment variables is nasty, and nobody > should need to do > > export GL_TEXTURE_DEPTH=32 > > by hand before starting a program. You clearly want to have the equivalent > of a .bashrc file that contains your defaults and that contains comments > about what the different settings do, but once you have that, environment > variables are actually very convenient because they allow you to make > truly local modifications. They are also often much more efficient and > easier to use than config files (ie "just say no to another config file > parser"). How do environment variables make anything easier? They still have to be set by something, be it a launcher or a wrapper script or whatever. Which means that each application needs to either be launched from something (bad), or needs to have specific support to launch itself from a common wrapper script (even worse). Unless I'm missing something. > For an example of a well-done configuration option (in my opinion, your > milage may vary), look at QT_XFT usage in KDE/QT. You have a pretty > graphical interface for setting the option, but you can always override it > on a local basis too. Most users aren't even aware of it as a environment > variable. But those are environment variables which are set by the GUI shell (specifically KDE), no? That's unfair against users who don't want to run everything from a particular GUI. Then again, I'm biased, being one of those users... -- http://trikuare.cx ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Visual Studio.NET comprehensive development tool, built to increase your productivity. Try a free online hosted session at: http://ads.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/redirect.pl?micr0003en _______________________________________________ Dri-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dri-devel
