On Mon, Jun 18, 2007 at 10:58:40AM +0100, David Brownlee wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Jun 2007, Quentin Garnier wrote:
> 
> >On Mon, Jun 18, 2007 at 10:00:29AM +0200, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> >The point is not XML.  The point is using proplib, so you don't have to
> >rewrite a f/ing parser every time you add functionality or change the
> >syntax of the configuration.  XML is just a way of doing that, which is
> >well known and is used in a lot of other contexts.  But just any proplib
> >codec is fine.
> >
> >Rah, if people could think for a second before stopping as soon as they
> >see XML in mail.
> >
> >I don't like XML myself, but I see the value in using proplib to store
> >or pass data between subsystems.  If XML is the price to pay for that,
> >well, I find it a reasonable deal.  I don't mind people disagreeing on
> >that point, but what annoys me is people not seeing anything but XML in
> >proplib.
> 
> 	The crucial question in this case is
> 
> 	"Do we want to encode anything in this config file which
> 	 cannot be entered on the booting kernel command line?"
> 
> 	If no, then the commandline parser can cover all.
> 	If yes, then we need another parser, in which case proplib is
> 	the standard way to address this.

Exactly!

And I hope the answer is "no", because "yes" would mean that in some
cases, you would have to boot the system, edit the configuration file, and
reboot, which is really inconvenient. Especially because changing the
configuration can be a prerequisite for successfull boot. The exact
format of the configuration file does not matter here.

Pavel