Re: A standard package for config files is needed

["Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org>]

Just to add some useful meat to my own little rant... :-)

Suppose that we were to get a good spec written for Grace.Maps & have that
up and working. Suppose that we built on top of this some version of
"Grace.AdaINIRegistryWhozits" that implemented some version of a tree-ish,
registry-ish, thingamabob that is built out of Grace.Maps. Provided you've
got your 'Input and 'Output and make a Load and Store operation for the data
structure, you *instantly* have a usable registry/initialization thing.
Programs can use it to set up and retrieve all of their configuration
information and we're off to the races.

From there, you can start adding child packages:

"Grace.AdaINIRegistryWhozits.Import_Export_CSV_Files"
"Grace.AdaINIRegistryWhozits.Import_Export_Windows_Registry"
"Grace.AdaINIRegistryWhozits.Import_Export_Flat_ASCII_Files"
"Grace.AdaINIRegistryWhozits.Import_Export_XML_Files"

or just about any other bizarre thing you can dream up. If the market seems
to like to use it to connect up to some sort of XML file, then this becomes
the dominant mechanism and you don't need to load and store the binary
format at all.

But the *real* advantage to this strategy is that you get a usable, real,
component quickly and if you want to provide other capabilities at a later
point, this isn't a problem. Connecting to specific OS capabilities ("The
Registry") could be hidden beneath some additional package. Providing some
sort of mutex capabilities via a database or something could be added on.
Whatever the needs are, you get there eventually.

But why agonize over all these details now? We can burn those bridges when
we get to them. :-) Opt for something simple & realizable within our
lifetimes & maybe it will get done. Isn't that keeping within the whole
spirit of "Open Source" and "Bizarre Development" :-)

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com


"Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org> wrote in
message news:ad7tcf$sto$1@nh.pace.co.uk...
>
> Keep it simple and get the job done & maybe we'll have something actual
and
> useful rather than abstract and theoretical. :-)
>