If I can add my 2 cents as the end user, IMHO having the configuration file in the xml format is unnecessary and only makes it less user-friendly.
Thanks, Michael. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tom Lane Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2008 4:58 PM To: Greg Smith Cc: Andreas Pflug; Decibel!; Peter Eisentraut; pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org; Josh Berkus Subject: Re: [HACKERS] Overhauling GUCS Greg Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Wed, 4 Jun 2008, Andreas Pflug wrote: >> IMHO the best compromise in machine and human readability is an XML format. > If the primary PostgreSQL configuration file becomes XML I will quit > working with the project. I'm not kidding. I have no particular use for XML in this scenario either, but really this thread seems to be arguing about mostly-irrelevant details. There is not anything fundamentally broken about keeping configuration in a text file, as is proven by the fact that all those other packages do it. The real problem we need to solve is how to allow newbies to have the system auto-configured to something that more or less solves their problems. Putting the config settings in XML does not accomplish that, and neither does putting them inside the database. It might knock a day or two off the time needed to develop a tool that actually does solve the newbie's problem ... but it's unlikely that the effort of changing Postgres to use some other configuration representation would get repaid through easier tool development. So I think we should stop worrying about the file format and think about these two problems: * Can we present the config options in a more helpful way (this is 99% a documentation problem, not a code problem)? * Can we build a "configuration wizard" to tell newbies what settings they need to tweak? regards, tom lane -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
