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Date:      Wed, 12 Feb 2003 15:21:33 +0000
From:      Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com>
To:        Garrett Wollman <wollman@lcs.mit.edu>
Cc:        arch@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   Re: syslog.conf syntax change (multiple program/host specifications)
Message-ID:  <200302121521.33506.wes@softweyr.com>
In-Reply-To: <200302121411.h1CEBRSe025071@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu>
References:  <20030210114930.GB90800@melusine.cuivre.fr.eu.org> <200302120632.36583.wes@softweyr.com> <200302121411.h1CEBRSe025071@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu>

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On Wednesday 12 February 2003 14:11, Garrett Wollman wrote:
> <<On Wed, 12 Feb 2003 06:32:36 +0000, Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com> said:
> > I'd much prefer to develop a simple yacc-able grammar and
> > develope the configuration parser that way, or use a key=value
> > configuration, so human beings can understand the configuration
> > with a program to help them.
>
> I don't think either of these is truly a useful answer, particularly
> for something like syslog which is already straining for a more
> expressive syntax.  There are just too many little languages in the
> system already, each one subtly different in syntax, such that it's
> nearly impossible to do anything programmatic with them that isn't
> built in to the program that they configure.

So you're preferring the software over the human operator.  In my world 
view, that is completely whacked.  It works fine if you're planning on 
providing a program to present the configuration to the user in a GUI or 
some such interface, but not at all if you expect the user to edit the 
configuration file as the normal mode of configuring the program.

Is THAT answer useful enough?

-- 

        Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?

Wes Peters                                               wes@softweyr.com


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