Re: A standard package for config files is needed

[tmoran@acm.org]

> 2) a config file should store information in plain ASCII, so a
>    user can easily modify them by hand!
> 3) the config file should be simple organized:
>    - All entries sould be of the form "scope.key := value"
>    - Ada-like comment blocks
  In a particular Windows program of mine the user can modify the color
settings (via the usual Windows color dialog), and the program will
save his preferences in the registry.  This is done with:

  type Shelf_Palettes is record ...
  procedure Stash_Palette is new Claw.Registry.Write(Shelf_Palettes);
  ...
  Stash_Palette(Claw.Registry.HKEY_CURRENT_USER,
                "Software\Decision Aids\Shelves",
                "Palette",
                Saved_Palette);

  That's pretty simple.  It appears to me you are suggesting that instead
I should write code to convert every element of Shelf_Palettes to a string
and write it out preceded with some suitable, human understandable,
"name=", and also write code to read such stuff back in, complete with
error handling when the user has botched up that text file.  That would be
a tremendous regression and I can't imagine anybody doing it.  Why should
the config file be an easily edited ASCII file?  Did everyone enjoy
editing .ini files in old Windows so much?  How often in current Windows
programs do users modify the config by doing things in the app (like the
color palette above), and how often do Windows users change a
configuration by using regedit?
  Considering how often real users should need to edit a config file
independently of the app or its Install program, I'm inclined to suggest
it would be easier to just read/write records in binary and tell the
user to use "debug" if he needs to modify them manually!
  There are also the questions of where the config file is stored, and
how multiple users of the same machine can have different configurations.
  The Windows registry certainly is an all too common failure point and as
a sort of parallel file system it's painful to backup/restore or uninstall
programs, but improvements in config files are not, I suggest, to be found
in better syntaxes for an ASCII text file.