A way of life goes astray [was: Re: [Rest2web-develop] Changed all references to value "tests" into value "checks"...]

[Nicola L. <ni...@te...>]

This will probaby seem completely nuts to you, but please bear with me,
I'll try to be concise, *and* offer you a way out of Config Obj *now*. :-D


> I think it makes the config files look more confusing. We use
> indentation for nesting sections. *so*, you either use what I have done
> so far, or you have to indent values *inside* a section.
> 
> Mine (a section indented uniformly) :
> 
> key = value
> key2 = value2
>    [section]
>    key = value
>    key2 = value2
>        [sub-section]
>        key = value
>        key2 = value2
> 
>     [section2]
>     key = value
>     key2 = value2
> 
> Yours (values indented differently from their markers) :
> 
> key = value
> [section]
>     key = value		# if you don't indent here
>     key2 = value2	# there's no way to distinguish
>     [sub-section]	# this sub-section from section2
>        key = value
>        key2 = value2
> 
> [section2]
>     key = value
>     key2 = value2
> 
> In your spec values have to be indented more than their section marker
> which is equally confusing. Added to which implementing your spec is
> *substantially* harder (for no gain IMHO).

I beg your pardon in advance. I know you spent much time implementing your
style, and then even changed it according to what I asked you (not the
above). But what I'm proposing could substantially improve ConfigObj
adoption chances, and simplify the code to boot.

Thing is, I thought about it, and the only comment I could come up with,
about what I replied to this mail of yours, is: "What was I thinking?!?"
What I asked you, and you already implemented (not shown above) is
inconsistent and arbitrary. What you instead understood, and wrote above,
of what I asked, is how things are usually written in an XML file, and in
ZConfig pseudo-XML config format too. It *is* probably the best way...


...but maybe all of this is moot. I keep believing that using indentation
in config files is a mistake, and I'm going to suggest a way to avoid it.


Remember, config files have to go into the hands of not-completely-human
beings called "sysadmins". ;-) You can be sure that most of them are
*horrified* by the prospect of significant indentation (that's true even of
most programmers that have not yet Seen the Light ;-) ). I really think we
should leave them free to indent their config files, or not, as they well
damn please. I believe that this would be a significant, and unnecessary,
barrier to the future adoption of ConfigObj.

Let's now suppose instead that indentation is not significant: we still
have the problem to signal that a subsection is nested inside the previous
one. The XML, and ZConfig, way is to have a section closing marker: it
is ugly, unnecessary, and incompatible with straight INI files.

A better way, I think, is to have an absolute level indicator in the
section marker itself. The marker should be absent at the outer level, to
keep compatibility with INI files, and should appear at inner levels. It
could be a digit, or a number of asterisks, but maybe the simplest and most
obvious thing is to multiply the square brackets, their number showing the
absolut nesting level:

key = value

[level 1]
key = value

[[level 2]]
key = value

[[level 2]]
key = value

[[[level 3]]]
key = value

[level 1]
key = value

Obviously it would be illegal to have a level 3 subsection directly nested
inside a level one section.

We could have an indented-write flag, so that the user could choose to
write out the config file in an indented shape:

key = value

[level 1]
    key = value

    [[level 2]]
        key = value

    [[level 2]]
        key = value

        [[[level 3]]]
            key = value

[level 1]
    key = value

That would be for humans eyes only, the program would recognize any shape,
since indentantion is not significant anymore.


Again, I understand this means many changes to the code; I hope that it
would also allow one to throw away a good portion of it, and that's akways
a good thing. :-)

I'll make you a deal: if you agree about the above, but are horrified by
the work needed to implement it, I propose that you *stop* working on
ConfigObj right now, and let *me* implement the needed changes, under your
direct control and supervision of each issue as it comes up, obviously. In
the meantime, you could go back to work on rets2web, or whatever is waiting
for your attention.

Once I complete the rewriting, you would step back in, add the still
missing features, wrap it all up and release it into the world. :-)

I know it takes a good deal of trusting, but I would ask you for any
structural change I'd make, and you have control of the repository anyway,
so what have you got to lose? :-)


-- 
Nicola Larosa - ni...@te...

When I was growing up, my parents used to say to me, "Tom, finish your
dinner - people in China are starving." But after sailing to the edges
of the flat world for a year, I am now telling my own daughters, "Girls,
finish your homework - people in China and India are starving for your
jobs." -- Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times, April 2005