Re: Re: Possible WM Documentation Project

Alex Perez wrote:

> cga wrote:

[..]

>> What I had in mind - perhaps mistakenly - was that configuration 
>> files in the oss world were gradually being converted to some 
>> standard xml-based dialect(s).
>
> No, this is absolutely false, IMHO.

as I said grep some half-recent linux system  for xml.. version etc..  
good or bad.. seems to be more and more of the stuff

>>
>> Here's what happened to me when I installed Debian Sarge with the 
>> wmaker cherry on top: started wprefs to add a couple of favorites to 
>> my menus and wprefs said - oh no you don't..! your menu files (read 
>> conf file) are in the *wrong* format.. So I poke around a bit and 
>> eventually I find that wmakerconf is not so fussy and lets you 
>> convert you menu files to the "other" format.. But then guess what.. 
>> you lose the Debian menu (yes.. the one that's regularly updated each 
>> time you use the Debian packaging system to add or remove apps from 
>> the system..!).
>> So apparently just for wmaker there's not one but at least two 
>> different proprietory formats just for the menus..
>
>
> You have a fairly large misunderstanding of the problem with the two 
> formats. They are both plist based formats. The error you are 
> referring to is a result of (I think) the transition to UTF8 (Unicode) 
> format plist files, which is an encoding issue, and not any change in 
> the actual plist spec or anything silly like that. Does this make a 
> bit more sense now?

I didn't look into it. But Debian Sarge still installs the old 0.80.2 
version.. Would that be using an UTF-8 plist format..??

>
> XML is not easily human-readable. It wasn't designed to be. INI files 
> and plist files, on the other hand, were designed to be. 

If you're referring to the format of the ~/GNUstep/Defaults/* files.. or 
the style files I'm not too sure that anyone unfamiliar with both the 
proplist format and xml-based syntax would find the proplist format much 
easier to read.

Short excerpt from a style file:

    UTitleBack = (thgradient, wr_bg1.jpg, 235, "#7c7342", "#c3b679");

Without a specification of the style file syntax handy how would you 
figure out UTitleBack.. thgradient.. apart from reading the source code..

Granted xml-based languages have these annoying '<''s and '/>''s.. and a 
couple of others.. But once you get over your first (bad) impressions it 
is remakably consistent.. And if you can't find a description of the 
syntax you should not have any problem getting hold of the dtd.

But is human-readabilty (casual reader's..) relevant in the first 
place..? in my experience wmaker provides configuration tools that let 
you do any on-the-fly customization tools quite comfortably w/o ever 
having to read/edit the contents of a file.

And as to special circumstances where manipulating configuration files 
non-interactively - via some program maybe becomes necessary .. isn't 
that one area where xml technology is supposed to come to your help..?

I'm not a user of gnome  but I doubt its developers would have gone to 
all this trouble implementing xml-based config files just because xml is 
(was?) trendy..

> XML is also over-used and abused, put to work doing things it was 
> never designed to do nor very well suited to do. Parsing plist files 
> is amazingly simple. parsing XML is not, and requires large libraries 
> and unnecessary dependencies. 

That I don't know. Strikes me as odd that fontconfig for instance would 
use xml if that were the case.

>> I'm not saying xml is necessarily the solution to the wild variety of 
>> formats of conf files in the linux (*nix?) world.. but since 
>> gnome/gtk appear to have converted to this new standard - at least 
>> from what I see when I grep the /etc directory on this new system - I 
>> thought I'd ask..
>
> Since when has GNOME/GTK become the authority on the best 
> configuration file format? 

I'm not arguing about who "has" the "best" format.. One problem I have 
finding my way in *nix systems is the presence of literally dozens of 
wildly different configuration file formats. I mean it's as simple as 
taking a tour of the contents of the /etc directory and subs... So 
anything that seems to move in the direction of some form of 
standardization in this area has my blessing..

> IMHO, the effort required to transition to an XML based config file 
> format far outweights any benefits (which may or may not even exist). 
> Simply stated, the pay off is not worth the investment in time and 
> effort. 

I guess being a humble user (and big wmaker fan) I'll have to take your 
word for it.. :-)

>>
>> As to Docbook .. we're all agreed.. No questions asked :-)
>
> Glad to hear it. It's an excellent format. 

But then again.. just like you argued regarding config files, Docbook 
might be overkill where wmaker documentation is concerned. I remember 
the ldp used to have two formats.. the simple homegrown linuxdoc ... and 
the more ambitious sgml-based docbook one.

>> oh and what's Proplists/libproplist? couldn't find a wiki.. couldn't 
>> find any doc on any of my systems either..?
>
> plist/proplists are the  format of the config file in windowmaker. 
> They were originally (AFAIK) devised by NeXT, and used by GNUstep 
> also. To a limited extent, they are still used by Apple, but they have 
> moved to a (really gross, IMHO) XML-based plist format which is 
> laughably unreadable. 

Thanks. But you see my point. I looked for a definition of 
plist/proplist and couldn't find one readily. You and a couple more 
people (ok.. maybe a couple of hundred..) lose their memory tomorrow.. 
or meet with an early demise and we're in deep trouble..

No big deal. I was only asking a question so thanks for reading/replying.



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