[ I dropped ARC reply addrs ] as an outsider I have little influence on sun internals but as a user I can't emphasize enough the difference between being able to use a unix text applications to maintain a collection of configuration files as a unit, and then apply them as a unit, vs. point and click for each 1 / ~10K option settings for each 1 / ~100 applications
just think how much harder it would be to replicate and then tweak x11 configs between os upgrades if syntax/validity is an important issue then provide command line lint application(s) to weed out errors in bulk as a case in point, (at&t) uwin installation is done via shell scripts and unix file and text applications that work directly on the registry, which is mounted as a filesystem -- doing this via windows apps would have cost the sanity of a few researchers -- Glenn Fowler -- AT&T Research, Florham Park NJ -- On Tue, 03 Oct 2006 10:56:21 -0700 Bart Smaalders wrote: > Rich Teer wrote: > > On Mon, 2 Oct 2006, Gary Winiger wrote: > > > >> The work going forward is to provide a unified admin interface > >> without a requirement for $EDITOR as the primary answer. > > > > I can't be the only person who feels uneasy about this trend away > > from ASCII config files. For services/daemons, I get it, but I'm > > not convinced when it comes to arbitrary command line programs. > > It is too reminicent of Windoze's registry... > > > You mean like gnome's configuration info? > The problem with ascii files to control configuration is > editing and upgrading. Designing a robust parser to catch > and properly report user configuration errors is often tricky > and not done well, and trying to handle syntax changes in config > files across upgrades, installation and un-installation of patches, > etc, is one of the major causes of package and patch breakage > in Solaris. > Configuration info needs to be owned by the app and edited by > the app, I think.
