Re: Admin tools - idea from left field
Amos Shapira wrote:
> True (about "Don't go down that road"). But is procedural programming
> THAT crucial?
If you want something that can (in theory) be used for *all*
configuration, then yes, procedural programming *is* that crucial. 90%
or even 99% is NOT good enough.
The FSF was, last I heard, planning to use Guile in this role. Guile
may not be ready for the job *yet*, but unlike XML or tcl, it should be
powerful and flexible enough. There was a long discussion on the GNU
mailing lists about Guile vs. tcl, so lets not rehash that here.
The FSF considered tcl and rejected it, and they're doing a lot more
software *development* than we are. They have a lot more influence over
the direction of free software than we do. If we start trying to
promote XML or tcl instead of Guile as a "universal configuration
language", we're going to be competing directly with the FSF's efforts,
which doesn't strike me as wise. Nor productive.
If there are problems with the way Guile works *now*, the appropriate
thing to do is take it up with the FSF. Maybe they'll fix it, maybe
they'll be persuaded to consider something else. But ignoring them and
starting from scratch strikes me as a bad approach. We should
collaborate with them.
--
Chris Waters xtifr@dsp.net | I have a truly elegant proof of the
or xtifr@debian.org | above, but it is too long to fit into
http://www.dsp.net/xtifr | this .signature file.
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