Well lets summerize: We seem to agree some sort of change to the configuration system is needed? We don't all seem to be it should be a program like language like lua. Httpd devs seem to like lua so it has the highest chance of being implemented.
But I think I'll speak for most people helping in users@ and #httpd that whatever is chose or changed should be documented and also be somewhat idiot proof? I've also noticed this sort of discussion has appeared a few times in the past. Maybe it's also time to actually do something with this discussion instead of letting it slowly fade? ~Jorge On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 10:35 PM, Bertrand Mansion <bmans...@mamasam.net> wrote: > On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 9:47 PM, Jorge Schrauwen > <jorge.schrau...@gmail.com> wrote: >> On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 9:07 PM, Akins, Brian <brian.ak...@turner.com> wrote: >>> On 6/3/09 2:45 PM, "Jorge Schrauwen" <jorge.schrau...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>>> I have to admit lua would be more flexible but I think most server >>>> admins have atleast come into contact with XML... while not >>>> necessarily the case with lua. >>> >>> XML with conditionals. Please, make it stop... >>> >>> I think we are going to have to choose one way (the current way, lua, >>> something else) and just go with it. >>> >>> Nice thing about lua is that the configuration is the runtime "script." >>> There is no external and internal representation of things. (Well, not >>> exactly, but close...). Lua is fast enough to just run every request - most >>> of the "hard" stuff is still in C. >>> >> >> I think going with a language "X" based config system will just give >> us more horrible questions and make it even harder to trouble shoot >> things like request X works but request Y doesn't. >> >> You might as well provide a building block method and the config c >> based, will scare off the more casual users just like lua and only >> allow the oncs who know what they are doing write a decent >> configuration. (ok that last one is maybe a bit over exaggerated but >> going pure program language based is a very big learn before usage >> curve) > > Lua is already used exclusively as a configuration language in many > different softwares. > It was actually first designed to be a configuration language and it > was very successful in this area. > > "...To make a long story short, yes, we did develop Lua to solve a > particular problem. Although we developed Lua in an academic > institution, Lua was never an "academic language", that is, a language > to write papers about. We needed an easy-to-use configuration > language, and the only configuration language available at that time > (1993) was Tcl. Our users did not consider Tcl an easy-to-use > language. So we created our own configuration language..." > -- http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/260022/-z_programming_languages_lua > > > Lua can look like this : > > DocumentRoot = "/htdocs" > ServerName = "www.example.com" > VirtualHosts = { > "www.example.com" = { DocumentRoot = "/example.com/htdocs" } > } > > It doesn't have to look like code. If you don't want to learn > programming, you don't have to because Lua code can look like a > configuration. I think that the current Apache conf style could be > easily converted into Lua syntax without having to rely on anything > too fancy for non-programmers. > > But if you need power, then Lua probably offers the cleanest and > fastest available in scripting languages. So you can get the best of > both worlds :) > > > -- > Bertrand Mansion > Mamasam >
