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My guess is that GUI tools often clobber configuration files once they touch them, because it's easier to write code that stores configuration as a hashmap and
by hasenj 11y ago
My guess is that GUI tools often clobber configuration files once they touch them, because it's easier to write code that stores configuration as a hashmap and when it saves it back, the output is not going to preserve things like, user comments, the order of things, etc.
- jimktrains2 11y agoIs it really though? And why are we just calling out GUI tools? Command line tools also must read in a config file, and they manage with text. json, ini, yaml, xml parses and writers exist in every language. There really isn't an excuse to not use a text-based config.
- hasenj 11y agoI think command line tools (like say, git-config) manage one option at a time. GUI tools tend to manage everything at once. Imagine the giant options box from MS Word 2003.
- jimktrains2 11y agoIt still has to read in the current config, mutate it, and write it out.
- seanp2k2 11y agoIf the Windows registry + INI files + config files anyway is the alternative, I'll take the text files please.