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On Tue, Jun 26, 2007 at 12:25:56AM -0400, Thor Lancelot Simon wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 25, 2007 at 09:10:58PM -0700, Jason Thorpe wrote:
> >=20
> > But, really, there is apparently nothing other than personal taste =20
> > that is driving stuff like "SCN".  I think there needs to be a very =20
> > high bar set for gratuitous "personal taste" changes like this when =20
> > there are no concrete technical advantages.  I must say that I am =20
> > somewhat disappointed that Core hasn't put a stop to this N-I-H =20
> > nonsense.
>=20
> I have to note that, in the painful discussion of this prior to now, you:
>=20
> 1a) Never responded -- at all -- to those who asked you whether Apple's
>     UI team would actually permit a developer to force normal users to
>     read or edit proplist XML plists (I think it's pretty blindingly
>     obvious that the answer is "no")
>=20
> 2) Never responded in any substantive manner to the objections of those
>    who noted that the XML plist format has serious usability issues as a
>    format to be read or edited by humans
>=20
> 3) Never actually offered any explanation of why a more human-friendly
>    plist externalization would be problematic, in applications where
>    there is a high likelihood that human beings would have to edit plists,
>    restricting yourself (uncharacteristically, and for some reason I real=
ly
>    do not grasp) to irrelevant and inaccurate invective such as the above
>    quoted "N-I-H nonsense."
>=20
> Since one of the very nice things about proplib is that if you want XML
> (or any other supported format), the library can always give it to you,
> it's really hard to see why the only position in this conversation that
> the phrase "N-I-H nonsense" applies to is not, in fact, yours.  What
> harm, exactly, does it do you if some other people, who find that they
> need to edit plists by hand, prefer to do so in a syntax they find
> easier to use?  If you find that syntax so offensive, you can always
> have proplib give you the XML you prefer instead.
>=20
> If you're worried about compatibility between proplib implementations,
> perhaps a more constructive thing to do would be to have Apple's library
> take advantage of the convenient BSD-licensed code for SCN format now
> available in NetBSD.  But don't shoot the messenger!
>=20
> This change makes proplib much more useful for a broad class of applicati=
ons
> (and the actual human beings who have to configure them).  It's really ha=
rd
> to see why you would find it so offensive.
>=20
> As a practical matter, just about everyone else seems to like this format,
> so it is probably going to stay -- just as the XML format is.
>=20
> --=20
> Thor Lancelot Simon	                               tls@rek.tjls.com
>   "All of my opinions are consistent, but I cannot present them all
>    at once."	-Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On The Social Contract


Thanks Thor, you've expressed most all of my sentiments with
sufficient accuracy, and much more soundly than I could have.

Since I've last commented on this last (a good 6+ months ago)
I've come around and now think proplib is perfectly reasonable.
However, I'm still rather skeptical of the XML externalization.
A human-readable externalization that didn't make me wish my
eyes were bleeding would be nicer.  I hope some sort of
compromise on externalizations is possible.

	Jonathan Kollasch

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