Status of gconf -> dconf

[Simo Sorce]

On Tue, 2009-02-24 at 16:28 +0100, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
> 
> Le Mar 24 février 2009 15:33, Simo Sorce a écrit :
> 
> > Fair enough, but projects like augeas are proof that changing files
> > (*from an application*) is not as easy as people make it seem.
> 
> Non-XML text formats are usually not designed for round-trip use (they
> only sort-of work in read-only mode when the app never modifies its
> configuration itself).
> 
> XML formats can be better but the kind of XML used by gconf is
> certainly not an example of something user modifiable. Just because
> XML can be used to create human-friendly syntaxes does not mean you
> can avoid the design work to make them human-friendly.
> 
> If anything gconf is a prime example of an XML implementation by
> people who didn't really understand how XML could work and made it
> easy for other people who didn't understand it either to abuse it.

You perfectly summarize my thinking, thanks!

> > I thik the suggestion was to split config files in multiple small
> > files and use ACLs to control access to them.
> 
> IIRC Ted T'so explicitely said in its ext4 FOSDEM presentation this
> kind of usage pattern was insanity and ext4 would not really support
> it.

I was there too, and I totally agree with him, that's why I say that it
is not a good idea to think of splitting stuff in many small files.

Simo.

-- 
Simo Sorce * Red Hat, Inc * New York