From owner-freebsd-hackers Mon Jun 29 12:59:27 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id MAA26266 for freebsd-hackers-outgoing; Mon, 29 Jun 1998 12:59:27 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from smtp01.primenet.com (daemon@smtp01.primenet.com [206.165.6.131]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id MAA26242 for ; Mon, 29 Jun 1998 12:59:08 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tlambert@usr08.primenet.com) Received: (from daemon@localhost) by smtp01.primenet.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id MAA25013; Mon, 29 Jun 1998 12:58:59 -0700 (MST) Received: from usr08.primenet.com(206.165.6.208) via SMTP by smtp01.primenet.com, id smtpd024981; Mon Jun 29 12:58:54 1998 Received: (from tlambert@localhost) by usr08.primenet.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA04488; Mon, 29 Jun 1998 12:58:47 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert Message-Id: <199806291958.MAA04488@usr08.primenet.com> Subject: Re: Adding a new user interface to FreeBSD administration To: peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 19:58:47 +0000 (GMT) Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, tlambert@primenet.com In-Reply-To: <199806291813.NAA17351@bonkers.taronga.com> from "Peter da Silva" at Jun 29, 98 01:13:34 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > Actually, you know, a registry implemented as Windows-style INI files > would be pretty easy to hand-edit OR machine-edit. It's one of the few > things that Microsoft came up with (if they did, I wouldn't be surprised > to learn that they just appropriated something some app was using) that's > actually reasonably well designed. And it'd make it REALLY easy to slip > Samba in... ??? Samba implements a .INI file manipulation library. But it is evil. The reason for the Windows 95 registry implementation was the explosive proliferation of .INI files. I would hate for FreeBSD to go down that road; it's already partly there, and that's what FreeBSD has been moving *away* from. Consider an installation of a tool that requires a shared library; the shared library is reference counted in the Windows 95 Registry so that (1) it can be deleted when it is no longer referenced, and (2) so that it is not delete prematurely as part of a deinstall. The ability to reuse shared objects without damaging the ability to deinstall them is precisely the reason for a *central* information repository. Granted, that's less of an issue for FreeBSD, since there is so very little commercial software available. 8-|. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message