

Re: The Strengths and Weakness of Fedora/RHEL OS management

On Mon, 3 Apr 2006, Horst von Brand wrote:

Some (simple) configurations can be described by a bunch of "Variable FOO
gets the value BAR", others just cannot (sanely, at least). There is stuff
like DNS, a web server for several domains, or the setup of a DHCP server
for multiple nets, where you just can't pretend everything is one flat,
uniform space. Configuration spaces have structure, and the whole idea of a
configuration file with a non-trivial syntax is to be able to mirror said
structure. The spaces aren't shaped equal, so either you end up squashing
everything into some (unnatural) flat representation or you end up with the
sum total of all (possible) diferent shapes (which is completely impossible
for a mere human to handle). Sure, you can decree that configuration files
are written in XML, which is expressive enough to create its own syntax on
a file-by-file basis, but even that doesn't help one bit with the mapping
of syntax to semantics (which /is/ the whole point, after all).

Have you even read how Elektra works or looked at the earlier multi-subnet dhcpd.conf examples? There is nothing about Elektra that is flat nor does structure have anything to do with semantics! Elektra's format contains all of the functional elements required to EASILY generate dhcpd.conf in its entirety... this has been stated previously...

I am trying to decide if you are purposely being obtuse or just operating on pre-conceived notions... I am trying to give you the benefit of the doubt. IF this thread has low value I dare say it is because of posts like the above that leads to distract and confuse the actual discussion.

