On Tue, 28 Jan 2003, Steven Paul Lilly wrote:
> I'm not a developer and I know nothing about XML and so have no real
> opinion as to what the file format should be. I am however woried about
> comments like the ones quoted below. The notion that users dont edit
> config files by hand may be all fine and good in the microsoft world but
> last time I checked I was using linux. You can't make the same
> assumptions about what users want to do as you can in the microsoft
> world. Most linux users are "power users" and want to have complete
> control over everything.
Thus limiting the pool of potential Linux users to the very small number
of "power users". Opening things up to smooth graphical configurators
makes Linux attractive to more users, and yes, that includes users who
just want their applications to work without wasting time in a text
editor. But I'd rather see Linux become more widely adopted than stagnate
in the backwaters (not that it isn't gaining popularity these days, but it
could do even better).
I hear Apple is using XML for most (all?) of the OSX config files - but
its still FreeBSD underneath, so how does that hurt FreeBSD power users?
> If the XML can be kept relativly simple to read and edit then fine but
> the end user should never have to use a config tool if they don't want
> to. So please keep it as simple as possle. In my opinion the
> readability of the config file should be a much bigger concern then
> having a multitued of configuration programs out there. Even the best
> config program will have it's limits and I for one don't want to be
> constrained by them.
I can see 3 ways this can work out:
1) The new format is tolerably readable XML, and power users learn
to see around/through/between the all <>'s.
2) An XF86Config-ish format is used, with an XML layer on top that
some tool boils down to the XF86Config-ish format (I think the
Red Hat printer config tools do something like this). DRI won't
be any the wiser.
3) The inverse of [2], where the DRI format is XML, and a tool
to convert from XF86Config-ish syntax to XML is created, just
to make the power users happy.
If you think about it, what *really* matters is the bytes inside DRI.
The XF86Config syntax is just sugar to make it easy to get the right
values in there for people handy a text editor. An XML syntax is just
different kind of sugar which makes it *trivial* to write tools for people
handy with a mouse. Not to mention facilitating features like preventing
invalid configurations from being saved, and other stuff that comes
essentially free with XML.
-Jamie [ crawls back into the woodwork...]
>
> Sincerily,
> Steven Lilly
>
> Alan Cox wrote:
>
> >XML printed sensibly is ok for human editing (not ideal). Users dont
> >edit config files however they use apps to do this.
> >
> >
> and
>
> >Users want config files that work, they expect to use applications to
> >edit them, and they also expect things like downgrading to work with
> >the same configuration file - which XML can do.
> >
> >
>
>
>
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