[Avocado-devel] RFC: Configuration by convention

[Plamen Dimitrov]

Hi all,

On 12/3/19 9:15 PM, Cleber Rosa wrote:
>>> And since almost everything in Avocado is a plugin, each plugin section should
>>> **not** use the "plugins" prefix and **must** respect the reserved sections
>>> mentioned before. Currently, we have a mix of sections that start with
>>> "plugins" and sections that don't.
>>>
>> So basically
>>
>> [vt]
>>
>> vt-related-option
>>
>> [vt.generic]
>>
>> generic-vt-related-option
>>
>> [runner]
>>
>> runner-related-option
>>
>>
>> yes, the plugins section seems redundant as many parts are actually implemented as plugins.
>>
> Yes, agreed.  The "plugin" suffix can go.
> 

+1 on this

>>> Reserved Sections
>>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>>
>>> We should reserve a few sections as reserved for the Avocado's core
>>> functionalities. i.e: main, plugins, logs, job, etc...
>>>
>>> Not sure here, it makes sense?
>>>
>> If we are to remove the "plugins." namespace then yes, we should reserve some names. At least "core" to indicate core options, or all above (plus perhaps some other core parts).
>>
> How can we tell if we have reserved *enough* sections?  If know that we
> need a section such as "logs", and use it, this is a de-facto reservation.
> What worries me is a preventive reservation because they will be probably
> speculative.  In a programming language, reserved words have a use, and
> thus variables and other statements can't use it.  But image a reserved
> word that is never used...

I would suggest simply using the a single "core" keyword here. It is explicit
and we always know that everything that is not "core" relates to some plugin
with its unique suffix (e.g. "vt" above).

Sorry for not commenting further on my side, as a regular plugin developer that has
used and adds some configuration, the most important thing I can say is that there
probably isn't a developer that would object improved consistency of the way configuration
is treated.

Plamen

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