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Re: a debconf backend db finally...



On Sun, 25 Feb 2001, Sam TH wrote:

> "Because everything should be XML" is a dumb reason to do something.
> But that isn't a reason not to use XML.  Is there a reason that you
> don't think the advantages of using XML that I mentioned (already
> available tools for both sysadmins editing the files, and programs
> parsing the files) apply?

* for many of us, writing a parser in C for a simple text format is easier
than writing a proper DTD

* Joey's parser is probably an order of magnitute smaller as a library than
libxml, and gives the same results

* almost none of the other config files in /etc are XML-based, so there's no
network effect to speak of

* he appears to already have code written that uses this format, so why change
it now?


Dreading the day when I need a tool more complex than 'sed' for editing my
system config,
Steve Langasek
postmodern programmer



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