On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 10:36:41PM +0100, Michel Talon wrote: > Chad wrote: > > > > Everybody who thinks it's a good idea (by way of analogy) to write > > command line utilities that default to not letting you specify any > > options at all, and if you use one option to do something non-default > > you have to specify *all* options even when the specification is > > exactly the same as the default -- raise your hands. > > In fact i am just now writing something which does that: either mostly > automatic, or with full "expert" options if you know what you are > doing. There is no real middle ground, in my opinion, and i just don't > like the Unix style commands, with tons of options and unscrutable man > pages. I think this Unix approach has not led to considerable adoption, > generally. To come back to HAL, i have been usually happy with HAL. You > just have to know that if you want to modify some simple X > configuration (typically change the keyboard language) you have to do > it in a HAL config file, not in xorg.conf. The only problem is that > the HAL config files are in xml crap, not in usual form. In fact the > main HAL problem is a documentation problem, like for many other softs. > How many new features of FreeBSD are correctly documented presently?
Wait -- what? Really?
Let's say your application has the following options with defaults:
foo: one
bar: two
baz: three
qux: four
Let's say someone wants qux to be five instead of four. Are you saying
you're writing your application to *force* them to specify *all four*
configuration settings, even when three of them are default? Are you
further saying you're doing this because you think it's a good idea from
a UI standpoint, and not just out of laziness?
--
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]
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