The Strengths and Weakness of Fedora/RHEL OS management

[sean]

On Tue, 28 Mar 2006 19:12:57 +0200
Nicolas Mailhot <nicolas.mailhot at laposte.net> wrote:

> Le mardi 28 mars 2006 à 04:09 -0500, sean a écrit :
> 
> > As for XML, with a proper API there's no reason to worry much about the 
> > format of the configuration data files.   The applications would never
> > look directly inside any config file anyway. 
> 
> That's what gconf authors obviously thought and look where it got them.
> Thinking about file format may be a PITA, but if you skim on it you
> won't ever have widespread adoption.
> 

gconf isn't limited because of its file format.   It's limited because
it's tied so closely to the Gnome WM.   Really, once you have a standard
API the backend file format doesn't matter anymore.   In fact it gives
you a lot of flexibility, you can store the data in a SQL server, or in
XML, or in flat files and every application can use it transparently.

This also provides a very nice transition path because you can make
a backend that handles the current config file format which should
ease transition.   

In fact this is the very path that the Elektra developers took.  You 
can write a portable app that works with the Windows registry, Gnome
gconf, or flat files all without recompiling your app. 

Really, the format of the file doesn't matter, the API is what matters.
It gives you great flexibility to change the format to suit your needs.

Sean