Configuration API

[Havoc Pennington]

On Tue, 2004-04-27 at 10:59, Thomas Leonard wrote:
> If we make an API, then people can get started writing backends for it.
> Eg, someone could make a gconf backend and all programs using the API
> would get their settings stored using gconf. Someone else could make a
> Linux Registry backend, or a D-BUS daemon, etc.

If gconf and the D-BUS daemon and so forth already have pluggable
backends, why would you layer an additional abstraction API on top?

Or put differently, if you had the abstraction API on top why would
gconf or the D-BUS thing be pluggable?

IMO the lesson from gconf is "slightly too complex" and the lesson from
straight to text files is "not quite complex enough" and the happy
medium is in between. But refusing to choose one is inherently more
complex than either alone. Making it configurable is the *wrong* way to
compromise, it's design-by-committee yuck.

Havoc