Re: [Offtopic] RE: XML Vnc or Non-Regestry for windows??

[<as...@ce...>]

On Mon, 25 Jul 2005, Jason Dodson wrote:

>> All modern file systems supports file permissions. You'll need to use
>> file permissions in any case, since you don't want to allow Everyone to
>> modify files like winvnc.exe. Using proper file permissions for the
>> configuration file is no extra work.
>>
>
> And the permissions are a blanket... either you grant them or deny them.
> The registry has per key/value permissions. Unless you are putting each
> setting into a seperate file, I would qualify that as insufficient. To
> fix the shortcomings, it WOULD be much extra work.

It's very seldom that you need to configure permissions on a per-parameter 
basis. You know, in UNIX, text-based configuration files have been used 
for ages, and this has never been a big problem.

What's good about the registry, however, is the API. It's certainly 
possible to have a "common" API even for text-based configuration 
"backends". With some implementations, like my Hiveconf project 
(http://www.lysator.liu.se/~astrand/projects/hiveconf/), the 
*administrator* can define how many configuration files that should be 
used. It's possible to have one file for all apps, one file per app, or 
multiple files per apps (for example, for the case when you'll need more 
fine-grained permissions).

Personally, I don't really like XML: XML is so hard to read and write for 
humans. In my opinion, however, the choice of 
registry/XML/INI-files/whatever should be done by the system 
administrator; not the software developer.


> You are blurring two ideas, and one doesn't even matter. The physical
> registry files (USER.DAT and SYSTEM.DAT), are system files, locked and
> controlled by the kernel at system boot. Nothing short of shutting the
> machine down, booting up another kernel, will get you access to these
> files. This will never be true with an XML file.

All files are controlled by the kernel. With proper permissions, a XML 
file is as safe as the registry. And again, there's no point of having a 
more secure configuration file than the application/service itself.

--
Peter Åstrand		Chief Developer
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