Re: Config_Files proposal

[Darren New <dnew@san.rr.com>]

Stephen Leake wrote:
> Right, I don't. I tend to be very picky; a file locking protocol is
> either "right", or it's "wrong"; no room for "mostly right" :).

Avoid Linux, then. Its file locking has starvation problems built into the
kernel. ;-)

> I was hoping for something technical, that would allow judging the
> benefit against the cost of doing file locking right.

Well, there ya have what I can give. :-) By "it's my opinion" I meant "it's
my opinion that it's worth doing the merge." Technically, it's not
especially difficult. Also technically, I guess one could really do this
manually if one wanted to, loading up a second "config" object and doing the
comparison oneself, so I guess I can withdraw my objections. I.e., one can
"code around" the problem, and with the proper iterators built into the
config API (allowing you to iterate over all keys, for example), one need
only code this once.

> It is smaller, but I'm willing to bet someone will hit it. For
> example, when you shutdown the computer, all the active editor
> instances will write to the config file at once. Maybe us "real"
> programmers don't leave editors active when we shutdown, but a lot of
> people do!

Good point. I hadn't thought of that. Hmmm...  Of course, there's no way to
catch the system shutting down out from under you in a portable way either,
so in reality it's more likely to lose *both* sets of changes. :-)

Ok. Nevermind. Rock on. You have convinced me with your superior logic. :-)

-- 
Darren New 
San Diego, CA, USA (PST). Cryptokeys on demand.
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