On Mon, Apr 30, 2012 at 5:12 PM, Kevin Chadwick <ma1l1ists@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
What's the point. To me that's just adding an extra redundant layer that could have bugs. I see no point using binaries for configuration whatosever. RAM is crazy fast and some SSDs are now as fast as a PIIIs ram. How many nanoseconds does it take to parse config files???
Heck it would be fast on our spectrum ZX.
The other argument is cross program similar formatting. To me that just adds difficulty and a usage barrier to possibly very different programs.
Qmail, dovecot and sudoers are all very different, it causes no problem. Binaries and xml in odd multiple locations expecting users to use a conf tool with rediculously long and custom non self explanatory terminal lines does!!!!!
I installed mint for a friend. It came with gconf. I had to google and install dconf to configure lockscreen, WTF!. Configuring gnome as an admin takes ages because it's custom. A textfile with examples would take seconds!!
Are you guys still discussing init systems? (I might have lost some context, if so: my appologies, and please change the Subject). None of initscripts, OpenRC, systemd or upstart use binary or XML configuration files. Gnome might, but that seems off-topic. If you wish you could always use KDE instead, which uses .desktop-like files (as does systemd for what that's worth). Cheers, Tom