On Thu, 4 May 2000, Greg A. Woods wrote:

# Date: Thu,  4 May 2000 02:38:43 -0400 (EDT)
# From: Greg A. Woods <woods@weird.com>
# Reply-To: NetBSD-current Discussion List <current-users@netbsd.org>
# To: current-users@netbsd.org
# Subject: Re: Posible virc(8) implementation
# 
# [ On Thursday, May 4, 2000 at 07:58:08 (+0200), Dr. Rene Hexel wrote: ]
# > Subject: Re: Posible virc(8) implementation
# >
# 
# I still don't see why people don't just give up on this virc sillyness
# and just do "vi /etc/rc.conf.d/*" and be done with it....  ;-)

"Because editing a bunch of small files sucks compared to editing
 a larger and certainly not unwieldy one".

# >   Why not have virc create a 'virtual' rc.conf (i.e., some mkstemp()
# > filename) that can be edited and then is re-distributed into rc.conf.d/
# > ?  This way, chances of people using the wrong editor on the wrong
# > config file are a lot smaller!
# 
# This is certainly what I expected such a command to do.  I don't know
# what prompted the other convoluted and error-prone idea.
# 
# >  We could even install an rc.conf file
# > that says "this file is obsolete, please use virc to edit system
# > configuration".
# 
# Yup.

"A solution looking for a problem."

# >   The only thing I can think of, that's not handled by this method are
# > additional config parameters that are contained in none of the
# > rc.conf.d/* files.  However, these could easily moved to some
# > rc.conf.d/config.default (or whatever) file.  IMHO this is far less
# > error-prone than having an rc.conf around that duplicates all config
# > variables and can be too easily changed using vi.

# Agreed.

Man, you guys just don't get it.

				--*greywolf;
--
BSD: We Come In Peace.