On 6/26/07, Alan Barrett <apb@cequrux.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 26 Jun 2007, Trevor Talbot wrote:

> > It doesn't matter that the particular application can read any format,
> > or that proplib provides the ability to write any format (it's
> > unlikely all the proplib users will expose that), if I still have to
> > jump through hoops just to make simple configuration changes.

> All that's necessary for you to be able to edit in your preferred
> format is for *one* proplib-using application to expose the ability to
> convert between different formats.  Then you run "plistedit --format
> xyzzy /etc/foobar.conf" instead of "vi /etc/foobar.conf".  Yes, this is
> jumping through a hoop, but I think it's an easy jump.

Right, but once you're at this stage of using a format-converting tool
to edit your supposedly human-friendly no-tools-required configuration
files, you've completely lost the benefits of having so many formats.
Might as well just pick one format and let the editing tool do all the
work, since nothing else benefits from it.

Meanwhile there's only the one format to learn for anyone who needs to
deal with such  files without full-blown editing/conversion tools
available, etc.