Re: tlug: Distribution War!!!

["Scott M. Stone" <sstone@example.com>]

On Tue, 16 Nov 1999, Marc E. Christensen wrote:

> On Tue, 16 Nov 1999, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
> [snip]
> >     Marc> Their admin tools allow for direct editing of the config
> >     Marc> files for programs so people can use either way of
> >     Marc> administering their box.
> > 
> > This is very good; something I missed in Turbolinux.  Debian has this
> > in primitive form (comments that say "if you touch this line remove
> > this comment so the configuration tool knows about it").  Is this more 
> > sophisticated in Caldera?
> 
> Yes.  In fact, the tool used is COAS.  It is aware of each program's
> config file format as well as accepted comment styles.  I preserves these
> across edits.  The next version will be even better at what it does...

As someone who's had to deal with this, let me warn you all - creating
config tools that allow the user to f*ck with the files manually as well
as with the config tool is *very very difficult*.  Requires a sort of AI,
actually, to determine what the user is doing.  It also depends on the
strictness of the config file format, etc, etc.  Many of my tool betas
would work fine when used exclusively, but if I went and monkeyed with the
config file and then reran the tool... look out.  Either an error-and-quit
condition, a trash-the-file condition, or somethimes just the standard
sig11.

BUT, maybe the COAS folks have more time/money/energy than I did and have
overcome this.  But I bet it still pisses them off when daemon developers
change config file formats from one version to the next (ie, bind).

--------------------------
Scott M. Stone <sstone@example.com>
Systems (UNIX) and Network Engineer
Taos - The SysAdmin Company 

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