On Thu, Jul 10, 2003 at 04:02:17PM -0400, Charlie Brady wrote:
However, avoiding parsing *is* a clear policy of his, with, I think, considerable payback in reliability and simplicity of control.
qmail, for example, has a raft of control files that, well, control its operation.
Sure, but they are all *very* simple in format.
Yes and no. Files like:
tag:value
are easy to read. Files like
field1:field2:field3:field4:field5:field6:field7:field8
or a collection ofa-gazillion easy-to-read but a-lifetime-to-wade-through files make it easy for the computer but very difficult for the human. I kinda like it when the computer makes it easy for the human. There is certainly middle ground where parsing is not error prone (realizing that all programs have to be debugged): somewhere in between LISP and a natural language system is just fine with me. I'm not going to belabor it, though.. Timo will do what he will do :-)
mm