Re: Linux Future
On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 03:05:58PM +0100, Josselin Mouette wrote:
> Yet full of misinformation, like the idea that using D-Bus makes a
> service less scriptable (while the reality is a complete opposite), or
> that configuration files are less human-readable than shell scripts.
My biggest complaint about D-Bus is that it's not well documented.
One of the really strong bits of the Unix Way is the strong push to
make sure everything is documented, even if a very fragmented way, in
a man page, and since everything is done using man pages, it's
relatively easy to find things. This is critically important when
you're writing a shell script.
One of the big things which is incredibly frustrating with the D-Bus
interfaces is that they aren't documented; and if they are documented,
it's not obvious where. So more than once, I've been reduced to
trying to figure out some python code, or C++ code, etc., just to
figure out how to force networkmanager from asking me for a password
every single time I moved to another random Wifi access point.
I finally figured out the magic file that I needed to edit to so that
PolicyKit would return "Yes, damn you, get the f*ck out of my way",
but it was not at all well documented, nor in a place that would be
easy to find. And what I chose may have not been secure, but I got
tired of figuring out what was the right way to fix the damned thing,
and I chose the simplest way so that I would be asked for a password
whenever I tried to add a new printer, or a new wifi network.
The irony, of course, is that PolicyKit/ConsoleKit was supposed to
make things more secure. But at least for my desktop, I've decided to
run things in a less secure way just because it was too painful to
figure out how to make it do the right thing.
- Ted
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