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To: "Gary Palmer" <gpalmer@FreeBSD.ORG>
cc: cskinner@bml.ca (Chris K. Skinner), csdayton@midway.uchicago.edu,
        doc@FreeBSD.ORG, support@cdrom.com
Subject: Re: FreeBSD 2.1 Documentation and Installation of "Everything" to 2.1 Gig drive. 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 24 May 1996 07:20:15 BST."
             <27014.832918815@palmer.demon.co.uk> 
Date: Fri, 24 May 1996 00:29:10 -0700
Message-ID: <6517.832922950@time.cdrom.com>
From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com>
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> Just don't, whatever you do, try to use libdialog (the library version
> of the dialog program for use in other programs). You'll bash your
> head against it for long hours and then want to commit mass murder (or
> go for another pizza, depending on your personality).

I fail to see how these two activities are limited to an either/or
proposition. :-)

Also, to give libdialog its fair(er) due, you should try using it now
that the C-user's API has been bolted on.  All the callback grot is
handled for you, as are pesky details like restoring screen contents
and such.  No more tearing strings apart to see which menu option was
invoked. :-)

> better description). My reservations come from some of your
> ideas. Setting up a simple DNS (e.g. for the private net 10) is a

Hey, whoa - watch your attribution, putting the happy face on DNS
wasn't _my_ idea, it was Mr. Skinner's, I was only talking about how
one might go about doing it. 8-) I definitely wouldn't want to try and
write an autoconfiguration tool for DNS myself!

> Some other parts of the system are equally nasty (sendmail.cf spring
> to mind immediately). A basic editor for the M4 sendmail configuration

I think you could get quite a bit of mileage out of just spitting out
the canned directives from a question tree - "Are you a uucp site?"
"Do you have any aliases for this site?" and so on.

> It strikes me there are TWO programs needed here. One for a freshly
> installed system, and one to re-configure an existing system.

I have no fundamental problems with that model..

					Jordan