New repository configuration ponderings

[Ralf Corsepius]

On Sun, 2006-05-28 at 20:47 +0300, Panu Matilainen wrote:
> On Sun, 2006-05-28 at 19:31 +0200, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> > On Sun, 2006-05-28 at 20:17 +0300, Panu Matilainen wrote:
> > > On Sun, 2006-05-28 at 18:20 +0200, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> > > > On Sun, 2006-05-28 at 17:33 +0300, Panu Matilainen wrote:
> > > > > I've been thinking about improving the repository configuration and
> > > > > related things for a while now. Just yesterday I realized we could
> > > > > easily use the existing main configuration system for this, instead of
> > > > > inventing yet-another-file-format and parser for it. 
> > > > 
> > > > Well, nice proposal, but ...
> > > > 
> > > > ... wouldn't an xml config file format be more suitable?
> > > 
> > > I *hate* XML configuration files from user POV.
> > 
> > 
> > If xml is suitable for something, then it's parsing config files.
> > 
> > It avoids all the kind of semifunctional implementation nonsense apt's
> > and yum's config currently carries around, and would dramatically
> > simplify the syntax and a parser's implementation.
> 
> Note the "user POV" in my comment above.
Pardon, complete rubbish, IMO.

I don't see any substantially difference between
<apt>
  <cachedir>cache/fedora/</cachedir>
</apt>

and

Apt {
  Cache-dir { cache/fedora }
}


>  From programming point of view
> I fully agree XML would be much nicer configuration file format. It's
> just that XML isn't "human editable" IMO (programmers don't count as
> humans here ;)

c.f. above.
> > But given your attitude, I withdraw my comment above. All your proposal
> > does is adding yet another source of errors and of incompatibilities.
> 
> Dunno, apt has a parser which does the job adequately and users are
> already familiar with the format.
Pardon again, IMO, a very short-sighted POV.

apt currently has a swamp of key-values pairs, written in a proprietary
block oriented language, hardly with any grammar.

Ralf