What other systems do plan on transferring your Mac OS X config files to?
6,000 client boxes that need an automatic update across several subnets? The config plists in XML allow for a consistency and management/auditing systems.
I disagree on every level. As a multi-platform developer, I want my preference files to be able to go between platforms with no discreptions. XML allows either program to write to it however it wants to, not worrying about line characters. How can you not see this?
What if I ftp into my mac and edit a preference file from a windows machine and use a program like editplus to edit and save via ftp a preference file for a program or for a server file (like an apache config).
Are these points obscure for a lot of people? Sure. But the problems still exist. Just because they don't exist for you don't mean they don't exist for others. It important apple has a file format that is platform independent. I'm sorry you don't agree, and don't like xml, but it is a very versatile wide-spread format. I stick next to apple on this one 100% over using just ascii line breaks and tabs and spaces. There is a reason MOST people don't use such a format and use REAL characters like pipes and tildes to break things in flat files that are written by programs. I'm not debating about this any more. To each his own.
I have worked with XML for many years and SGML before that. It is overkill for preference files and it breaks the basic record-per-line format that unix tools assume, which is a big loss for a lot of people.
I've registered specially so I could tell you that that's the most retarded proposal I've seen in a while.
XML is a reliable file format that is properly defined and validatable.
Of course it breaks if you write it badly. Sensitive is good. It prevents you from making mistakes.
What you're proposing, tab-leveled information, might be nice if you're coding a to do list. But not if you're the supplier of a preference file format for developers.
Comments
What other systems do plan on transferring your Mac OS X config files to?
6,000 client boxes that need an automatic update across several subnets? The config plists in XML allow for a consistency and management/auditing systems.
What if I ftp into my mac and edit a preference file from a windows machine and use a program like editplus to edit and save via ftp a preference file for a program or for a server file (like an apache config).
Are these points obscure for a lot of people? Sure. But the problems still exist. Just because they don't exist for you don't mean they don't exist for others. It important apple has a file format that is platform independent. I'm sorry you don't agree, and don't like xml, but it is a very versatile wide-spread format. I stick next to apple on this one 100% over using just ascii line breaks and tabs and spaces. There is a reason MOST people don't use such a format and use REAL characters like pipes and tildes to break things in flat files that are written by programs. I'm not debating about this any more. To each his own.
Here is an example of preferences within preferences in ascii:
- item1- item2
- item3
Or an example with dictionaries:
http://www.yaml.org/start.html
I have worked with XML for many years and SGML before that. It is overkill for preference files and it breaks the basic record-per-line format that unix tools assume, which is a big loss for a lot of people.
I've registered specially so I could tell you that that's the most retarded proposal I've seen in a while.
XML is a reliable file format that is properly defined and validatable.
Of course it breaks if you write it badly. Sensitive is good. It prevents you from making mistakes.
What you're proposing, tab-leveled information, might be nice if you're coding a to do list. But not if you're the supplier of a preference file format for developers.