On Mon, 2007-09-03 at 12:01 +0200, Christian Brunschen wrote: > On 3 Sep 2007, at 11:19, Philip Boulain wrote: > > What's the difference between having to hack about a plain-text, > > few-lines configuration file, and a plain-text, few-lines shell > > script? > The same shells are not (at least by default) available on all > platforms.
You only need sh, because all you're doing is an exec, which covers all POSIX platforms. For Windows, use a shortcut. > Basically, requiring a shell script means that you have to meta- > program around qemu itself, whereas a configuration file means you're > writing something within the context of qemu (and thus don't have to > venture outside qemu's domain). Given that the goal is "simple", I'd consider this a plus. 95% of UNIX-like systems is glue.[1] > 2) if 'foo' is a directory: > verify that 'foo' is in fact a vm bundle directory... If this is going to move from frontends to QEMU itself, given that the Q devs have already created a QEMU VM bundle format, it makes sense to use theirs. It's a sensible format, consistent at least with OS X bundle conventions. (Not sure about GNUStep bundles, but given that their both NeXT offspring, I doubt there's much difference.) > Saying that 'Q already handles this' means that any other program > that wants to offer a similar ease-of-use would have to be able to > read and interpret Q's configuration file format. I don't see a problem with this. > If instead there is > a wrapper-neutral format, then each wrapper can use that. This is what Q bundles should be absorbed as. For "simple", there are shell scripts. For "complete", there are bundles, and Q's format is a good one to absorb as "the QEMU bundle format". I don't see the point in a config format which adds nothing but complexity over a shell script. LionsPhil 1. This figure drawn from entirely unauthoritative sources. ;)
