On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 21:54:16 -0500, Tom Willis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 15:02:04 -0700, Dave Brueck > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> Jorgen Grahn wrote: ... >> > How about writing them in Python? ... > I actually thought of this, and I was kind of on the fence due to the > intended audience. > > I don't think it's too much to ask that they are comfy with the > concept of variables. I mean, if it was a shell script they'd be at > the top of the file anyway. > > Then again I'm some what hesitant to help them make the connection > that I'm giving them the ability to indirectly edit the code. Kind of > like opening pandoras box. Once the figure out they can open any file > (*.py) with notepad, there will be utter anarchy and I'll get the call > at 4am that somethings wrong with the production data.
There's two issues there. One is about hiding knowledge from the users. I'm against that; this isn't the middle ages. If they shoot themselves in the foot, that is /their/ problem, not yours. You support /your/ code, not whatever they hack together. And with 99.999% certainty, they won't touch it. The other is about the config file messing up the environment for your main program. Seems hard to do by mistake -- you'd have to write endless loops or import modules and modify them, or someting. I seem to recall that you can evaluate a piece of code in a separate environment/sandbox -- maybe that's the way to go? (Personally, I try to avoid designs which need config files. If I /did/ need one I'd steal the design from some well-known Unix program, because that's my primary target, and I'd prefer not to lock myself into Python -- I might want to rewrite the thing in C, or Perl, or ...) /Jorgen -- // Jorgen Grahn <jgrahn@ Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu \X/ algonet.se> R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn! -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
