Re: [gentoo-user] Devicekit - especially just for Dale

[Alan McKinnon]

On Tuesday 19 January 2010 00:29:18 Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:53:16 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > Your post makes sense until you realise that the use of XML in a
> > configuration designed to be changed by the user renders the package
> > virtually unusable. Given a choice between me as a developer struggling
> > with a config parser versus vast swathes of users dumping the package
> > because of the same parser, I'd say it's me that has to work harder,
> > not my users.
>
> If we are truly trying to make Linux more accessible, with things like
> the plug and play hal offers, should we even be contemplating editing
> config files?
>
> XML is a machine-readable file format that just happens to use ASCII
> characters, it is not meant to be modified by a text editor, so if your
> program uses XML configuration files, it should include a means of
> editing those files that does not include the use of vim.

which almost by definition means you need an xml-information parser on par 
with an xml-parser to figure out what the hell the fields mean, then design an 
intelligent viewer-editor thingy that lets the user add-delete-change the 
information in the xml file. All the while displaying to the user at least 
some information about the fields in view. Shaes of .chm anyone?

By the time you've done all that and made the thing semi-usable, you've 
expended more effort than if you had written you own xml-parser from scratch. 
In C, python and perl. Plus C++ for good measure just to show how clever you 
are.

As said before by someone else, hal and everything about it is a classic case 
of "second system syndrome". It should be a comp-sci object case :-)



-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com