Re: gEDA-user: [RFC 1/6] Non-Turing-complete configuration files.

[al davis <ad151@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sunday 18 January 2009, Árpád Magosányi wrote:
> I think it would be instructive to take a tour in the /etc
> directory of a Debian or Ubuntu system. All of the config
> files are expected to be user writable, just do not use
> config generator tools afterwards. If one needs config
> generator, then one uses it, if wants extra, then writes
> config by hand. This wheel is also invented long ago. A lot
> of engineering hours are already spent on thinking through
> this class of problems, and the right solution is already
> found. You just have to learn from it.

.... and learn from its mistakes.

The big mistake is that the choice of the config generator tool 
is all or nothing.  You can use the config generator as much as 
you want, but as soon as you manually edit you must not use the 
config generator any more.  If you do, you lose the manual 
edits.

Another big flaw in the config generators is that they often 
generate really horrible looking config files that nobody would 
want to manually edit, even when the original config files are 
well designed.  This wouldn't be such a problem if the config 
generator were relatively complete, but mostly they are not.  
Often, they give you just enough to get started.

One example is the mail transfer agent "exim" in the Debian 
package.  Exim config files are very well designed.  They are 
easy to understand and very flexible.  The config files 
generated by Debian are a big mess, as if the intent is to 
think of them as some kind of compiled object code.  Except for 
a few name substitutions, the Debian confgure helper for Exim 
doesn't do much.

Another example, closer to home, is the popular development 
utilities "automake" and "autoconf", which we all use.


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