linux registry (no, not that again!)

[Florin Andrei]

On Wed, 2004-07-28 at 08:27, Dan Williams wrote:
> On Wed, 2004-07-28 at 11:15 -0400, Stan Bubrouski wrote:
> > 
> > Yeah why do people want to move to a single config database anyways?  So
> > you can have a single point of failure for an entire server and all
> > services?  Or so one poorly written app can corrupt it all?  Ya know I
> > agree with you guys here.
> 
> The point of a good converged config project (IMHO) would be a
> _consistent_ _file_ _format_ in plain-text files, NOT a binary-only
> single-file registry.  People simply don't seem to understand that.

Well, the typical Linux groupie has a pretty fixed and simple schema to
evaluate everything:

- Looks Like Linux = Good (TM)
- Looks Like Windows = Bad (TM)

The Windows registry has some shortcomings, indeed, but all of them are
stemming from the fact that the WinReg's storage backend is a SPoF
(single point of failure).
The abstract idea of a unified config mechanism is good, and you pretty
much exhausted the arguments for that, it's just that the concrete
implementation of it has to be designed in such a way as to minimize (if
not snuff out altogether) the SPoF.

For as long as i've been playing with Linux i've been dreaming of a way
to get out of the "Every App Has It's Own Fancy Schmancy Incompatible
Config File Format" hell. I envied Windows for its registry while at the
same time being aware of the problems of a registry implemented badly.
And it looks like the Linux Registry goes a bit even further than
WinReg, if i understand it correctly.

-- 
Florin Andrei

http://florin.myip.org/