From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,80b3e504140e89fd X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-06-19 08:08:32 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: dennison@telepath.com (Ted Dennison) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Config_Files proposal Date: 19 Jun 2002 08:08:32 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Message-ID: <4519e058.0206190708.2ef205e4@posting.google.com> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: 65.115.221.98 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1024499312 21014 127.0.0.1 (19 Jun 2002 15:08:32 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 19 Jun 2002 15:08:32 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:26384 Date: 2002-06-19T15:08:32+00:00 List-Id: Stephen Leake wrote in message news:... > I've posted another example spec and implementation, at > > http://users.erols.com/leakstan/Stephe/Ada/Config_Files/config_files.html > > This second implementation uses the Java property style file format. > > I also changed the spec some. In particular, I got rid of the > "Section" parameters; keys now just use dotted notation. I think either the Java or the X style would be acceptable. With a bit of work, someone could probably sell me on the ini style too though. > I'd like to have a semi-formal vote on which file format to go with. > Then I'll move this into Grace, and we can finish up all the details. I hate to do this, but I have to go on record as being strongly against voting for things. Everything in Grace needs to be decided by general consensus. The only reason there isn't an official policy on this at the Grace website is because I haven't had time to put it up. I'm not saying everyone has to agree that one of these styles is the best of all possible styles. But there should be some kind of general agreement that one of them is meritous and acceptable, if not everyone's perfect option. If we get down to two that seem to be equally good with no huge contraversy between them, then perhaps a vote or coin flip or executive decision or something similar would be in order. BTW: I have recently appointed Stephen to lead the config file effort for Grace (see http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/grace/ ). So if there were an "executive decision" to be made in the context of the Grace project, it would be up to him to make it. This is a good example of why we need to go with this approach. We may now have consensus against using XML, but there really hasn't been much discussion here on the relative merits of the other approaches (other than that some folks think INI's should be reseved for Windows). If I were to just vote now between the other 3 options, it would be based on looks. Another thread here has recently illustrated quite well that this would be quite succeptable to parrochial biases. :-) So really a better question right now would be to ask if anyone has any big objections to any of the approaches presented (other than XML, to which the objections are already well recorded). Also, does anyone have any strong reasons why they think one is much better than the others?