Re: XML as a standard UNIX config file format (Re: Caldera installation - something Debian should learn)
>>>>> On Sat, 24 Apr 1999 22:50:53 +0200, Bernd Eckenfels <lists@lina.inka.de> said:
Bernd> On Sat, Apr 24, 1999 at 08:31:08PM +0200, Martin Bialasinski
Bernd> wrote:
BE> Hu? What is the difference between a Tag <myname> and a tag M: if
BE> you enter both with a config program?
>>
>> Because you can use just one generic config editor. When there is
>> a nice DTD editor, and the apps provide their dtds, this editor
>> can prevent to construction of an invalid file. It knows which
>> options are allowed at any place, and what value an option can
>> take.
Bernd> The Editor des not know about: Data-Types, Possible Values,
Bernd> Sematics, Support like: File/Color/Dont-Browser, does not know
Bernd> about the scope of a element (relative or absolte path), does
Bernd> not know the sematics of an element. All those problems you
Bernd> have both, with XML and other config files. XML is especially
Bernd> dump in this, there is no definition of allowed formats
Bernd> (date-field with YY-MM-DD) or allowed field lenghth. A DTD
Bernd> does not help in all of those aspects of config files.
1) There is work on this issue.
2) The situation is not changed from a `normal' config in any way
(i.e. this is no argument)
3) It'd be trivial to define this for xml
(<relative-path>.</relative-path>) with a library wrapper around
the xml library that does type checking.
Bernd> I love to write Markup Documents, I even use Word to write
Bernd> real markup. But this doesnt change the fact, that I dont see
Bernd> any support recent XML Editors will give me compared to
Bernd> Control-Centers like GNOME´s or KDE´s. Or even Linuxconf or
Bernd> .dot-file generator.
It makes writing things like that trivial. This is also a
non-argument. Pointing to an example of something that does work
without xml and then saying `See XML isn't important or good' doesn't
prove anything about xml. It only proves there are some dedicated
people out there willing to write a hundred and one parsers.
BE> An XML PArser is very heavy wighted
>>
>> $ ls -l libxml.so.0.0.0 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 89100 Mar 26 15:01
>> libxml.so.0.0.0
>>
>> This is the one used by GNOME. It is from the W3 Consortium.
Bernd> I´m talking about parsing password files with thousands of
Bernd> entries. There is a good example, try runnng sendmail (as
Bernd> root) on a HP/UP Box with shadowed passwords and a few
Bernd> thousand passwd entries.
This may be a legitimate argument. It will be a bit more heavy weight
than some config file formats. But you are just asserting that it
would be too bad to stand. Do a test and show me the numbers.
>> I am sick of checking if I may use tab or not, what is the syntax
>> for config file xyz etc.
Bernd> I dont have problems with that. Well.. on the othe hand, I am
Bernd> used to work with it for years.
Ah. You don't therefore no one does. If you hadn't guessed. Another
non-argument. And the quip about the time you have used it implies
that you are smart and able to deal with arcane things and anyone that
argues for a simpler more standard format just needs to be smarter or
get some more experience. It's rude to imply those things about the
people you argue against.
>> As mentioned above, the editor knows what you can put in every
>> level.
Bernd> It doesnt help if you dont know what tag is used for:
Bernd> old style: <direcetory /> rlimit=10000
Bernd> option indexes
Bernd> </directory />
Bernd> new style: <directory root="/"> <rlimit>10000</rlimit>
Bernd> <options>indexes</options/>
Bernd> </directory>
Bernd> Those 2 examples dont show me much benefit...
Ah. One example and now you win. Guess what? Another non-argument.
Bernd> XML is very well suited for object serialisation, reading and
Bernd> writing by programs. It is even well suited to to Document
Bernd> Marup, but it sucks (like any other file format) in beeing an
Bernd> user interface.
A user interface? You mean someone editing the file? You said
yourself that you edit sgml in word. Isn't that a user interface to
the document? Does it suck to use? Why do you use it?
I think that using XML as a config file format for everything would be
grand. I also think that the people against it may make any attempt
at doing it a big waste of time.
Dres
--
@James LewisMoss <dres@ioa.com> | Blessed Be!
@ http://www.ioa.com/~dres | Linux is kewl!
@"Argue for your limitations and sure enough, they're yours." Bach
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