On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 4:30 PM, Dale <rdalek1...@gmail.com> wrote: > Alan McKinnon wrote: > >> On Tuesday 19 January 2010 00:29:18 Neil Bothwick wrote: >> >> >>> On Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:53:16 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote: >>> >>> >>>> Your post makes sense until you realise that the use of XML in a >>>> configuration designed to be changed by the user renders the package >>>> virtually unusable. Given a choice between me as a developer struggling >>>> with a config parser versus vast swathes of users dumping the package >>>> because of the same parser, I'd say it's me that has to work harder, >>>> not my users. >>>> >>>> >>> If we are truly trying to make Linux more accessible, with things like >>> the plug and play hal offers, should we even be contemplating editing >>> config files? >>> >>> XML is a machine-readable file format that just happens to use ASCII >>> characters, it is not meant to be modified by a text editor, so if your >>> program uses XML configuration files, it should include a means of >>> editing those files that does not include the use of vim. >>> >>> >> >> which almost by definition means you need an xml-information parser on par >> with an xml-parser to figure out what the hell the fields mean, then design >> an intelligent viewer-editor thingy that lets the user add-delete-change the >> information in the xml file. All the while displaying to the user at least >> some information about the fields in view. Shaes of .chm anyone? >> >> By the time you've done all that and made the thing semi-usable, you've >> expended more effort than if you had written you own xml-parser from >> scratch. In C, python and perl. Plus C++ for good measure just to show how >> clever you are. >> >> As said before by someone else, hal and everything about it is a classic >> case of "second system syndrome". It should be a comp-sci object case :-) >> >> >> > > I bet if hal had a easier to alter config file, I could have gotten my > keyboard and mouse to work. Having the config file in xml format would be > fine, IF it works out of the box with no configuring at all. Thing is, in > my case and a few others, it needed a little bit of help to work. Some > figured out how to make it work but my light bulb burned out and we all know > where that ended up. > > I suspect that the underlying part of hal works fine. It MAY have worked > fine for me if it was configured properly. The config part seems to have > been at least some of its shortcoming. Take hal, redo the config file and > try again. May work. ;-) >
Or, at least provide a easy config UI (both X and non-X) for the XML files, so you never have to worry about the syntax or the complexity of the config files... -James > Dale > > :-) :-) > >
