On Jun 26, 2007, at 12:45 PM, Tom Spindler wrote:

>> I'm not going to be persuaded otherwise,
>> because my fairly extensive real-world experience with this format
>> tells me that it's just not an issue.
>
> Could you please expand on this? (This is an actual request for info,
> not a rhetorical device.)

At my Day Job, I encounter literally every day situations where plist  
files need to be edited, both by software developers and end users.   
The format of these files has never once been a source of grief for  
these people.

> If you use that same logic, why bother using NetBSD when you could
> use OS X?

Here's a clue -- I *DO* use OS X.  But I also use NetBSD, and I want  
to continue to improve NetBSD.  It's why I wrote proplib in the first  
place, to provide some plumbing for some future NetBSD features.

> Also, you allude many times to "cross-platform" use of proplists
> - could you please elucidate wtf they are? Personally, I ahven't
> seen much evidence for such formats outside of the "Here there may
> be dragons, this could change at any time whatsoever" semisecret
> OS X guts - and thus there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of cost
> (or gain, save people's copious spare time) for introducing an
> alternative format. (I'd love to be proved wrong with evidence that
> there _is_ external stuff.)

OS X uses them, of course.  And many of the plist schemas used are  
well-documented because they constitute API exposed to application  
developers.

GNUstep also supports them, as does one other property list library  
that I've forgotten the name of.  GNUstep, as well as the other  
property list library that I've forgotten the name of, are cross- 
platform.

> Is there any documentation intrinsic to NetBSD for the proplib
> serialization stuff? Or is it all on apple's website somewhere?

I have a mostly-written plist(5) manual page.  Other than that, each  
app that might want to use plists needs to document the schema that  
the app uses.  It's annoying to have to document multiple syntaxes.

-- thorpej