Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 08:50:01 -0800 From: Jack Rusher <jar@integratus.com> To: Andrew Reilly <areilly@bigpond.net.au> Cc: Jordan Hubbard <jkh@osd.bsdi.com>, jonathan@graehl.org, freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: configuration files, XML? Message-ID: <3ABF7339.B197AF34@integratus.com> References: <NCBBLOALCKKINBNNEDDLMEBODNAA.jonathan@graehl.org> <20010325170513Z.jkh@osd.bsdi.com> <3ABEB519.CA9F1029@integratus.com> <20010326181443.A75840@gurney.reilly.home>
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Andrew Reilly wrote: > > I really like the idea of a uniform and configurator-friendly > config management system. I'm not crazy about XML, but my > opinion on the subject hardly matters. XML certainly isn't the universal savior that it's made out to be, but it is a decent language for specifying other languages within constraints that more or less match what we are talking about. My feeling is that if a technology is widely adopted and good enough to get the job done, I'd rather use it than make up "yet another standard." > at once. None of the existing applications share config > formats, or rely on common mechanisms, so changing them one at a > time will have the positive effect of allowing for the necessary > user education process to be gradual. It also gives more room I agree with you completely. However, my biggest concern with such a project isn't that the technology will be dauntingly difficult, but rather that people won't want it. There is a sort of tension in this community between developing new technology and trying to make sure that we are as much like the Ghost of Unix past as possible. I am concerned that changing configuration file formats that have been static for twenty years might deeply offend some of the user (and developer) base. > easy (or easier) matter to replace or modify the library to > include other forms of config store, such as LDAP databases or > netinfo servers or whatever. Sure. PAM-like modules to select which ass end you want your configuration to use. > all of this can be done without the pre-existence of a universal > configurator tool, which history has shown to be a difficult and > complicated beast. I think this gets a little bit easier when you have DTDs to represent constraints. We may want to go so far as to add Schema parsing so that we can have real value range information embedded in the format definitions. -- Jack Rusher, Senior Engineer | mailto:jar@integratus.com Integratus, Inc. | http://www.integratus.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-arch" in the body of the message
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