On Fri, 7 Aug 2026, Keith Lofstrom wrote:
How many here control their servers with "invisible" config
files generated by GUI interfaces? Without commented text
files, how do you *verify* WYSIWYG?
How many prefer editing configuration files (mostly in /etc),
paying attention to file permissions, adding explanatory
comments, and backing up their prior config files since
forever, as I've done for decades?
I suspect that using PLUG for this survey won't provide anything
resembling a representative population.
I am a professional systems administrator, so, yeah, I keep a close
eye on configuration files.
But I don't keep a similarly close eye on, say, automotive maintenance
tasks. I don't really know how worn my brakes are. I rely on someone
else's expertise for that; from my POV, that level of automotive
maintenance is a black box.
So if my mechanic wanted a web site, he'd probably be thrilled to have
configs wrapped in a nice menuing system.
In other words, there's no moral high ground here. There are
priorities and functionality. We all want the functionality, and some
of us make a priority of managing computer configurations down to the
last # and ;.
--
Paul Heinlein
[email protected]
45°22'48" N, 122°35'36" W
