Re: Config_Files proposal

[Stephen Leake <stephen.a.leake.1@gsfc.nasa.gov>]

dennison@telepath.com (Ted Dennison) writes:

> 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.

I think that's where we are. I guess I could have said "I'd like to
reach consensus on this". But I don't know how to actually do that in
a newsgroup forum. In person, I can go around the room and ask "do you
have anything else to add".

Asking for a vote is pretty simple, and most people know what it means.

> 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.

Yes, I guess I never said that here. Thanks.

> 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. :-)

Ok, I'll accept that.

> 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?

Ok. Good question. I guess I'm learning how to do consensus on a
newsgroup.

I went with the choice between Java and XML because there was
definitely consensus on multi-level keys (rules out ini), and I felt
there was sufficient complaint about "complex syntax" to rule out X
style.

Note that I did ask people to vote for any of the file formats.

If we end up with an overwhelming majority for one format, I'll take
that as consensus. If it's close, or there are only a few votes, I'll
be back :).

-- 
-- Stephe