Re: config files proposal

[antonio_duran@hotmail.com (Antonio Duran)]

Darren New <dnew@san.rr.com> wrote in message news:<3CFCE218.585D56E2@san.rr.com>...

> I think that's true on UNIX (esp. server programs) much more so than on
> Windows. I can't remember the last time I edited configuration manually on
> Windows.
> 

Maybe I'm not lucky enough since I recently had to configure Apache,
PHP, and MySQL on my machine and had to deal with text based config
files but these applications are not Windows native (that is, only for
Windows) ;-). Of course, using a text editor rather than a specific
tool is more error prone and one must take care of specific syntax
issues (eg. editing the hosts file and that tricky tab at the
beginning of entries).

> Errrr... if you ignore the ACLs on registry entries, sure. That's like
> saying the problem with UNIX is it's all files, so if you can write to one
> you can write to them all.

Right, I've ignored ACLs on registry entries (maybe because my
experience is on Windows 98). While I recognize the advantanges of
having configuration data in a single place (common tools for handling
data) I'm also concerned with, as we say in Spain, "putting all the
eggs in the same basket". There is a risk of loosing all your
configuration data. This is not only a Windows problem, as I recall,
on AIX there is also a repository for config data (I think its name is
RODM or something like that). Moreover, the data storage format of
those repositories is propietary, tailored to a specific system, and,
in general, even if you backed up your config data is complicated to
restore them back after a system crash.

While is true that on Unix, if you loose the contents of your /etc
directory you're in big trouble is also true that it contains ordinary
files and restoring them (provided you backed up them) is easier.

> I think it's also important to have system-wide, program-wide, and user-wide
> config files.

Agree.

Thank you for your answer and best regards,

     Antonio Dur�n