Re: [GD-General] Registry/CFP/Files (WAS: A portable preferences library)

[Brian H. <ho...@py...>]

> I'm curious why you would want to use the Windows Registry or MacOS
> CFPrefs when you could just use the file system on all platforms?

That's a good question, and in general I agree with you that having a 
separate configuration file seems to make a lot more sense.

But for better or for worse, the registry has some advantages.  It 
transparently handles multiple users without actually having to query 
the user's home path; it is a standard practice; there is little 
opportunity for the user to accidentally muck with it (file system 
errors occur a lot more than registry errors); and usually the changes 
are isolated to an area only your application cares about.

Also, it's a standardized location.  Right now a lot of applications 
are dumping settings in /windows/system32 or /windows or /Program 
Files/Application or /Documents and Settings/user, etc.

I abhor applications that litter system areas with their own special 
files.

> Might you at least make a file-system-only
> implementation option on each platform?

Definitely.  I would like to do a file-system fallback path that can 
be specified, but this does add more work but hopefully could be 
generalized and shared among all implementations.

Brian