[OpenAFS-devel] Selecting a configuration file format for OpenAFS Services

[Derrick Brashear]

On Sat, May 16, 2009 at 9:07 AM,  <u+openafsdev-t07O@chalmers.se> wrote:
> Hello Derrick,
>
> On Sat, May 16, 2009 at 08:43:40AM -0400, Derrick Brashear wrote:
>> > In an extreme case, if you would not be able to express some configuration
>> > choice without an elaborated syntax, then you may define an appropriate
>> > syntax and still place this data into a command line argument.
>>
>> In some way which is arcane and not legible to the user? Why??
>
> I did never suggest using an arcane and unintelligible way.

I had already composed a reply earlier, and junked it because I
thought Simon made the point better, but...

Consider the case which pushed us here. You have an array of numbers.
It's a set of timeout values, which apply when you have between a
certain number of callers.

You can, of course, just pass an argument which is a comma separated
list of timeouts. What do they mean? Well, you don't need to pass
those numbers, so, well, just make sure you order things right.

But wait. What happens if you want to also make the ranges the
timeouts apply in tunable? Do you now pass 2 lists, one for the bucket
ranges and one for the timeouts, or a set of pairs? How do you
delineate the pairs?

The work to allow passing arguments on the command line rapidly
devolves the syntax of those arguments to absurd.