[Yum] script run idea

Michael Stenner mstenner at phy.duke.edu
Fri May 30 13:11:32 UTC 2003


First of all, Rob, I suggest that you prepend abstracts to emails
which exceed 50 lines (maybe that should be 100, I dunno).  How about
8 line abstracts, with each line under the standard 76ish character
limit? :) You can even do <abstract>I demonstrate the
necessity...</abstract> if you want :)

My take on xml is that it should usually be used IFF the primary
purpose of the data is to be read and written by machine, but human
reading or writing is considered valuable (but secondary).  The gconf
stuff would be a perfect example.

Let me try and summarize your five points:

a) a standard config format would be good, and xml would be a good
   choice for that

b) xml is well understood, other formats are inconsistent (maybe this
   should be a.1)

c) xml is extensible, or MUCH easier to make extensible than
   most hand-rolled alternatives

c) [ you probably meant d :) ] xml is easy to edit by hand

d) easy multi-purpose parsing and machine-editing

Basically, this comes down to a matter of opinion, but I think the
place where I disagree is with reason c, (the second one).  I think a
lot of people find xml harder to read and edit than most other
standard config files.  I find I often have trouble finding the data
amidst all that markup.  This is just plain subjective, so I don't see
much point in discussing it into the ground.  However, it's often the
dealbreaker for me.  If I found xml as easy to read/edit as the
standard .ini format (like yum uses) then I would be completely with
you.

After all that, let me finish with this:  I don't have an opinion
about which format should be used.  I don't know enough (haven't been
following closely) about what it will do, how it will be used/edited,
and how extensible it needs to be.  I just wanted to share my thoughts
on Rob's thoughts on xml :)  And to pick on Rob a little.  I wanted to
do that, too.

					-Michael

-- 
  Michael Stenner                       Office Phone: 919-660-2513
  Duke University, Dept. of Physics       mstenner at phy.duke.edu
  Box 90305, Durham N.C. 27708-0305



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