Re: Some more debconf queries

[Rob Browning <rlb@cs.utexas.edu>]

Jules Bean <jmlb2@hermes.cam.ac.uk> writes:

> [idling wondering how many lines of code and hours of debugging have
> gone into the the programs in debian so that each can parse a
> sufficiently general and in most cases bespoke configuration file
> format]

Yeah, it's too bad all the config files don't just contain scheme/lisp
forms.  Then you could just have one universal tiny parser that's
regular, very well defined, and gives people with parenphobia the
willies :>

(I've often wondered how much useful work has been wasted on mostly
 tangential attempts to define yet another config-file format.  I feel
 the same way about the time spent trying to invent and worse yet,
 parse, the C++ language's syntax.  Those front-end writers have my
 deepest sympathy :> )

-- 
Rob Browning <rlb@cs.utexas.edu> PGP=E80E0D04F521A094 532B97F5D64E3930