5 ms·

Gnome has been replicating the worst parts of windows (the registry comes instantly to mind) since the release of Gnome 3.

by na85 7y ago

bepvte 7y ago
gconf is like the windows registry how? is it just because its a centralized config store? how evil is an annotated, easy to use, non archaic file that some apps put their settings into?
- mavhc 7y ago
  it must be evil because Microsoft did it. Weird that they copied everything else Windows did and people didn't mind. There's way more evil things about Windows, like click to raise and menu bars.
  - rrix2 7y ago
    Evil, huh?
jhanschoo 7y ago
A centralized location for GNOME config has always been present since GNOME 2 (maybe earlier, but 2 was when I started with GNOME). See, for example, this page https://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/linux_desktop_guides/gnome_2.14_admin_guide/gconf-8.html https://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/linux_desktop_guides...
- Vogtinator 7y ago
  dconf is now a binary format though.
harrygeez 7y ago
I think gconf and macOS's plist have proven that Microsoft is at least somewhat right with registry, or at least the idea is. I don't know why people didn't like it and honestly I don't have a strong opinion on it, but I have a feeling in some ways Microsoft didn't have much of choice given that they need to have backwards compatibility.
- numpad0 7y ago
  I was warned far more than necessary about corrupting The Holy Windows Registry Hive, I think that’s the entirety of the problem with it.
- guitarbill 7y ago
  it's handy for config, sure. but it has several downsides. very opaque compared to a config file.. keys can't have comments. the average user has no idea what a "dword" is. some registry paths are obscenely long. you can accidentally break one program or windows trying to edit another's settings. and i'm not sure currently, but a big problem in the past was uninstallers didn't remove registry keys reliably. personally, i think XDG_CONFIG_HOME + a robust config file framework with a standardized format (yaml/toml, whatever) would work as well. being able to specify a schema could be extremely useful, too, to prevent borked configs. as you've said, we've seen a lot of tools/OS's go this direction. and it doesn't have to be perfect, the 80% case would be a huge improvement. i'm also sure the registry made a lot of sense at the time. it was probably way quicker than reading and parsing files. we didn't care so much about sandboxing/isolation and backing up. people probably had less application installed.

Gnome has been replicating the worst parts of windows (the registry comes instantly to mind) since the release of Gnome 3.

by na85 7y ago

Gnome has been replicating the worst parts of windows (the registry comes instantly to mind) since the release of Gnome 3.

bepvte 7y ago

gconf is like the windows registry how? is it just because its a centralized config store? how evil is an annotated, easy to use, non archaic file that some apps put their settings into?

mavhc 7y ago
it must be evil because Microsoft did it. Weird that they copied everything else Windows did and people didn't mind. There's way more evil things about Windows, like click to raise and menu bars.
- rrix2 7y ago
  Evil, huh?

jhanschoo 7y ago

A centralized location for GNOME config has always been present since GNOME 2 (maybe earlier, but 2 was when I started with GNOME). See, for example, this page https://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/linux_desktop_guides/gnome_2.14_admin_guide/gconf-8.html https://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/linux_desktop_guides...

Vogtinator 7y ago
dconf is now a binary format though.

harrygeez 7y ago

I think gconf and macOS's plist have proven that Microsoft is at least somewhat right with registry, or at least the idea is. I don't know why people didn't like it and honestly I don't have a strong opinion on it, but I have a feeling in some ways Microsoft didn't have much of choice given that they need to have backwards compatibility.

numpad0 7y ago
I was warned far more than necessary about corrupting The Holy Windows Registry Hive, I think that’s the entirety of the problem with it.
guitarbill 7y ago
it's handy for config, sure. but it has several downsides. very opaque compared to a config file.. keys can't have comments. the average user has no idea what a "dword" is. some registry paths are obscenely long. you can accidentally break one program or windows trying to edit another's settings. and i'm not sure currently, but a big problem in the past was uninstallers didn't remove registry keys reliably. personally, i think XDG_CONFIG_HOME + a robust config file framework with a standardized format (yaml/toml, whatever) would work as well. being able to specify a schema could be extremely useful, too, to prevent borked configs. as you've said, we've seen a lot of tools/OS's go this direction. and it doesn't have to be perfect, the 80% case would be a huge improvement. i'm also sure the registry made a lot of sense at the time. it was probably way quicker than reading and parsing files. we didn't care so much about sandboxing/isolation and backing up. people probably had less application installed.