Re: XML as a standard UNIX config file format (Re: Caldera installation - something Debian should learn)
On Fri, April 23 1999, Craig Brozefsky <craig@red-bean.com> wrote:
|David Welton <davidw@master.debian.org> writes:
|
|> The other problem with XML is that it is static - there are some
|> config files that include little languages, with conditionals, loops,
|> etc.. For this reason, something like scheme would probably work well
|> - it's very easy to parse and deal with, but you can code in it if
|> need be.
|
|Not only that, but you have a full language upon which the user can
|build their own abstractions. So I can whip up a macro for defining
|my favorite flavor of samba export, and then define a bunch of that
|flavor very easily. Complex config files will be easier to simplify
|thru macros and functional abstractions.
It's a repeat the same argument from a few months ago. Many config
files today use shell scripts to define variables - how many times did
you actually take advantage of that to loop or such?
|You do not want to limit the expressiveness of any of the
|configuration languages, and force them all to be the same. I see no
If you really feel the need to use some programming language then you
can use it to build XML files, just like you use today shell scripts
to eventually pass some static files/envariables/whatever to programs
which manage without a built-in parser.
--Amos
--Amos Shapira | "Of course Australia was marked for
133 Shlomo Ben-Yosef st. | glory, for its people had been chosen
Jerusalem 93 805 | by the finest judges in England."
ISRAEL amos@gezernet.co.il | -- Anonymous
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