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To: Michael Smith <msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au>
Subject: Re: Kernel config metasyntax 
Cc: chat@freebsd.org, config@freebsd.org
In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 28 Jan 1997 14:46:53 +1030."
		<199701280416.OAA06928@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> 
References: <199701280416.OAA06928@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au>  
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1997 21:29:43 -0700
From: Warner Losh <imp@village.org>
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In message <199701280416.OAA06928@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Michael Smith writes:
: Argh!  You don't _have_ to!  Please don't muddy the waters like this.
: 
: We are talking about a _metaconfiguration_ spec, for a tool which 
: produces, as its end result, a traditional config(8) input file.

Yes, but to add options to that tool, I'd have to write TCL.  I
suppose cut and paste isn't so bad for doing that.  I don't know TCL
very well, and it is hard enough to gork the config file config files
right now that any more would seem a burdon.

However, that said, if TCL can be made to be unobstrusive enough to
hide most of the langauge and it would be a simple matter of cut and
past to add most things, then I'd have no problems with that....

: it simply takes advange of the braced syntax and the Tcl parser to
: avoid reinventing the wheel.

Hmmm, same could be said for a lispish

(option 'DDB :description "blah" :type 'boolean)
(option 'DDB_PANIC_REBOOT :description "blah blah" :type 'boolean
 :depends-on 'DDB)

which would be just a simple eval in lisp :-)

However, no matter what the language, I'm all for doing things as
easily as possible, and if that is TCL, then go for it.  As you may
guess, I've been left with a bad taste in my mouth for TCL over the
years, so I tend to react negatively to it.  If others thing that it
is the way to go, and they are the ones writing the config tools, then
my likes and dislikes really don't matter.

Warner