init: API

[Joe Desbonnet]

On 11/19/05, Nicolas Mailhot <nicolas.mailhot at laposte.net> wrote:
> There is *nothing* wrong with XML itself, if fact there are lots of very
> good built-in properties in XML, the only thing a service description in
> XML would need is strong style guidelines.
>
> And BTW without strong style guidelines flatfiles are just as bad, so
> the only thing you people are saying is "I've seen good flat-file style,
> but no good xml-file style". And considering you've all read perhaps 100
>

Guidelines is the key. As far as I can tell there has been no effort
in the past to try to standardize config file syntax. Of course any
effort to force a standard on application developers is doomed, but if
two configuration file standards were developed (like an RFC
document): one a simple key-value, one record per line text file
format; the other a XML schema for more complex configuration files
then I believe developers will be tempted to adopt whichever standard
suits their need. A standard parsing library in the major application
languages will provide further incentive.

This should also help in the common scenario where a separate
developer is responsible the admin GUI for an application (probably in
another application language). If a standard configuration file is
used, the GUI admin tool developer does not have to worry about
changing syntax and bugs in the parser.

Is developing these standards worth while? Is it in the remit of the
Fedora project?

Joe.