Not to pick on Nico, but its fine if we want to discuss this future evolution of a classic "not this case", but please get this off of the distribution for my pending fast-track.
- thanks, - jek3 Can't resist: Note to Glenn... I'm sure "bulk update" will be a requirement for anything we accept. - jek3 > Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 13:52:04 -0500 > From: Nicolas Williams <Nicolas.Williams at Sun.COM> > To: Bart Smaalders <bart.smaalders at Sun.COM> > Cc: Rich Teer <rich.teer at rite-group.com>, roger.faulkner at Sun.COM, Rod.Evans at Sun.COM, April.Chin at eng.sun.com, gww at eng.sun.com, don.cragun at Sun.COM, Korn Shell 93 integration/migration project discussion <ksh93-integration-discuss at opensolaris.org>, Joseph.Kowalski at eng.sun.com, PSARC-EXT at sac.sfbay.sun.com > Subject: Re: [osol-arc] Re: [ksh93-integration-discuss] libcmd must die [PSARC-EXT/2006/561 Timeout: 09/05/2006] > Mime-Version: 1.0 > Content-Disposition: inline > User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.7i > > On Tue, Oct 03, 2006 at 10:56:21AM -0700, Bart Smaalders wrote: > > Rich Teer wrote: > > >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. > > These issues, specifically upgrade issues, don't all go away just from > using XML or what have you though. The only thing that goes away is the > need to build and maintain a special-purpose parser. > > > Configuration info needs to be owned by the app and edited by > > the app, I think. > > Yes. But CLI and, more importantly, scriptable interfaces should be > provided, not just GUI interfaces. > > Nico > --
