On Jun 26, 2007, at 12:07 AM, Alan Barrett wrote:

> I see no need for the kernel version to support any codecs other  
> than XML.
> I think that the human need to edit plists in a non-XML format  
> should be
> provided via an editor wrapper that reads the XML file, converts it  
> to the
> user's preferred format, spawns the user's preferred editor, and then
> converts back to XML.

That might be a reasonable compromise.  Userland gets the bloated  
version with pointless additional plain-text encodings, everything  
else sticks with XML so e.g. the boot loader doesn't need to support  
multiple plain-text encodings, etc., and a "pledit" can do the  
conversion temporarily for people who feel they need the crutch.

Of course, we could just have a property list editor that used an  
outline view.

-- thorpej