init: API

[Gilboa Davara]

On Thu, 2005-11-17 at 19:18 +0000, Joe Desbonnet wrote:
> Slightly related to this thread -- is there any policy regarding the
> format of configuration files for new software or re-writes of
> existing software.
> 
> XML would be the obvious choice (it is both human and machine
> readable), but I did see a recent post here that requested "anything
> but XML". I can understand why someone would not like XML (not easy to
> read, difficult to edit with vi without breaking the file). But one of
> the things I hate about unix like OSes is that every application has a
> different config file format, making writing admin tools very
> difficult.
> 
> If not XML then what? Obviously the project owner gets to choose, but
> in the absence of personal preferences I think it make sense for
> Fedora Core project to make a recommendation so as to make the
> development of admin tools easier.
> 
> Joe.

I, too, second the "anything but XML" statement.
A. Hard to read.
B. Hard to edit using non-XML editors. (vim in my case)
C. Tends to create needlessly-complex data structures.
D. While can be accessed using shell scripts, it requires very complex
and unreadable code.

On the other hand, what does XML offer in return?

Gilboa