Re: cfgtool 1.0 -- alea iacta est

[jsp@betz.biostr.washington.edu (Jeff Prothero)]

David Frey <david@eos.lugs.ch> notes:

| Rob>Not to be a stick in the mud, but why couldn't this be a text file?
| Rob>It seems fairly unusual to make something like this binary.
| Rob>
| Rob>(That said, thanks for spending time on an important tool.)
| 
| I agree with Rob. Building a binary database is IMO a really bad idea.
| 
| PS: Lars, keep up the good work.

I strongly second on all counts.

I remember thrashing in TOPS-10, where every system
config file was binary and accessible only through
some arcane tool, then coming to unix where all
config stuff is just in plain ascii, open to inspection
and editing using standard tools, and just feeling
like I'd arrived in PARADISE.  I could do stuff like

 find /etc -type f -exec egrep badaddress {} \; -print

and actually have a fighting chance of locating the
bad configuration information, and many other wondrous
things!

Let's not go back to the Bad Old Days of binary
config files without very pressing reason indeed. :)

 Cynbe

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