Re: [RFC] Git config file reader in Perl (WIP)

From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Date: Jan 18, 2007, 00:50 UTC
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.63.0701180146060.22628@wbgn013.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de>
In-Reply-To: <dbfc82860701171008r65006b60vf81df9f82ab25712@mail.gmail.com>

Hi,

On Wed, 17 Jan 2007, Nikolai Weibull wrote:

Show 20 quoted lines

> On 1/16/07, Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, 16 Jan 2007, Nikolai Weibull wrote:
> > 
> > > And, as Johannes already pointed out, it's very disturbing having to
> > > dump a configuration file so that it is more easily read by other
> > > programs.
> > 
> > I never pointed out such a thing. The configuration file is meant to be
> > user-friendly, as the inventor did not mean to have a program like
> > git-repo-config.
> 
> Then what did you mean in your mail from Jan 16, 2007 12:12 PM:
> 
>  How silly would that be: we parse an easy-to-read format,
>  munge the easy-to-handle internal data format into another "easy-to-read"
>  format which is then parsed by a script language into an easy-to-handle
>  internal data format? No. NO.
> 
> ?

It was about the human-readable -> internal -> human-readable -> internal chain. Those are way too many transformations for little gain.

IMHO modern programs spend 99% of the time are spent transforming data. Most of them is unnecessary. That's bad.

Show 9 quoted lines

> > > That would suggest that the ini-based format for git's configuration
> > > file is suboptimal.
> 
> > Not at all. Again, git's configuration file is meant for human inspection.
> > Therefore, an ini-style file is optimal.
> 
> It is suboptimal because it's hard for computers to inspect.  An
> optimal format would be accessible by all, whether human, machine,
> robot, android, what have you.

There's a reason we program in C, Java, etc. and not in Assembler. Sometimes computers and humans are too different to be able to cater for both of them at the same time.

I know, I know. The geek inside me disagrees, too. But my experience doesn't.

Ciao, Dscho