Nadav Har'El wrote:
One major difference in philosophy between the Windows registry and the
Unix /etc is that the former was never ever meant to be manually read
or modified by users, and the latter was mainly intended for manual
modification.
Don't get me wrong. Not for one second. I will not try to claim that the
registry is a good solution. The very fact that it offers posix
semantics (changes are seen immediately, no locking) in a world that
does not work this way for the main data storage (files) will show you
it was probably not very well thought out. It also has no notion of
comments, which I find a crucial part of the Unix config system. Still,
you gotta agree that it does give a consistent view into stuff, and
eliminates the question of "where is my config".
And, if you insist on going the Registry way, why repeat Microsoft's
mistake and create a second heirarchy of data with its own tools to
modify it, when a heirarchy of data already exists - the file system?
Because it's not as convenient. Maybe it's because reiser didn't
eliminate ext. Maybe it's the way it's easier to search for things
inside a file than inside the file system, but I don't see that as
working as well. I will agree that it gives the same basic functionality.
registry file, XML file, or whatever.
Oh, I'll also mention that I'm with you on "XML is not for humans" and
"config files should be".
Shachar
--
Shachar Shemesh
Lingnu Open Source Consulting ltd.
Have you backed up today's work? http://www.lingnu.com/backup.html
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