[Registry] Re: LinuxRegistry in Freedesktop & KDE

[George]

On Wed, Apr 21, 2004 at 12:55:00PM -0300, Avi Alkalay wrote:
> When I go visit customers used to Windows, and really wanting to use
> Linux, they feel UNIX configuration problems are *real* problems. And
> honestly their opinion is much more relevant then ours, a group of
> hackers.

Yes, but I would also note that the problems are not AS horrible as many
people describe.  For example with webmin you can pretty much administer a
server completely and through the web.  Some things do need to be improved,
but it's mostly in the UI part.

> LR is not that magic bullet, and will never be. The community is, when
> building an ecosystem for configuration.
> But I see the programs ecosystem is stuck in the stupidly hard task of
> reading, understanding, and changing human readable files, consistently
> and distribution independent.
> Don't you think ?

Some human readable files are TRIVIAL to read/write by a program (.ini files,
see ve-config for what I think is a very simple implementation that
reads/writes such files, preserving comments and their position relative to
keys).  It is not hard and you only have to do it once.  Some files may be
hard to do in complete generality.  In that case there is no need to do that.
Store the actual config in a separate file and create the server config when
needed from the UI.  The generated file can have a comment on which tool to
run and which file to really edit (example would be sendmail).  This way
you don't need buying from the app writers, and you can concentrate on the
UI.  It is VERY VERY VERY VERY unlikely that someone like apache or sendmail
will ever consider LR, so it is completely inpractical to think they will.
If you cannot READ the files, then just WRITE them.  This is not a problem.
If a user is happier editting the original file, they will forgo the nice UI,
but that's their choice to make.  Vast majority of users would use just the
UI and be happy that way.  The translation layer will be much MUCH simpler to
write then to convince major app developers to go to some rather weird new
config system.  Furthermore if you write a translation layer then it will
work with existing versions of the app.

Rember to think practical and pragmatic.  Nice(tm) solutions don't exist,
because any solution has to work in an existing world, with existing programs
and existing prejudices.  Not to mention that the definition of Nice(tm)
differs vastly from person to person.  For example I can tell quite easily
that your definition of what a Nice(tm) configuration system in an ideal
world would be is completely different from my definition.  So even if you
develop what you consider the ideal, best solution, I will likely consider it
complete crack and not use it (and perhaps vice-versa).

George

-- 
George <jirka at 5z.com>
   When they kick at your front door, how're you gonna come?
   With your hands on your head or on the trigger of your gun?
                                         -- The Clash