What we never talk about is how we could have avoided this entire mess in the first place. We should have never put configuration in the same place as presenta

What we never talk about is how we could have avoided this entire mess in the first place. We should have never put configuration in the same place as presentation. Presentation is what you are telling the user. Configuration is what the user is telling you. By mixing the two together, we have muddled the context of both. What is your configuration presentation meant to say? 1. The user has rewritten (present/past tense) your set of declarations. This shall be read as a positive: [x] volume muted [x] unsubscribed 2. The user declaring a set of future changes to your set of declarations. This shall be read as a negative: [x] volume mute [_] unsubscribe Neither of these is guaranteed to be unambiguous. Neither of these is even expected to tell you which one it is! This is why configuration files are so well-regarded. The context they exist in defines the tense of their contents. Somehow, we never invented the GUI-equivalent of a filesystem, and we are all the more confused for it.