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 --
