Re: GConf and bonobo-conf

[Colm Smyth <Colm Smyth ireland sun com>]

>Delivered-To: gconf-list gnome org
>From: Dietmar Maurer <dietmar ximian com>
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>To: Colm Smyth <Colm Smyth ireland sun com>
>Cc: hp redhat com, gconf-list gnome org, gnome-hackers gnome org
>Subject: Re: GConf and bonobo-conf
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>Colm Smyth wrote:
>
>> Bonobo-conf can naturally read and write any CORBA_Any because it
>> doesn't care about type or content.  If GNOME applications can write
>> version-dependent binary information into GConf, users will have a lot
>> of difficulty upgrading.  Since GNOME development is fast and we want
>> to keep adding new features, we don't want to be stuck with
>> version-compatibility issues, or worse we don't want to write specific
>> code to migrate users from one application version to the next!
>>
>> It also means that the data is unreadable by other applications
>> unless they use the same data-structure (and the same version).
>
>Ok, once again: The goal of bonobo-conf is not to store everything
>as binary data. If you restrict yourself to the basic types used by
>GConf the values are even stored in the native GConf format - no
>binary data at all ;-)

I can see that you feel you are repeating yourself, so do I!

It seems that you're saying that if developers don't use any of the
features of bonobo-conf, they won't have problems. I agree.

>> If you write configuration data as primitive values, you get the
>> following advantages:
>>
>> - application transparency; other applications can easily read and
>>   write the data
>
>read/write is not problem, even if you use CORBA_any. The real
>problem is if you want to modify values. We have PropertyEditors
>for that.

I'll take a wild guess and assume that a PropertyEditor is a 
Bonobo component that displays a GUI for editing GConf data.
Unless my application is Bonobo-based, I can't use your PropertyEditor
interface. Read/write is only useful if an application can interpret
the data.

>> - easier upgrade; most changes to data structures are additions and
>>   this creates no upgrade problems as new applications can continue
>>   to read the existing configuration information
>
>> - easy to edit; users will be able to use the GConf tools to change values;
>>   gconftool can display and edit values, and the upcoming Gtk+-based 
gconfedit
>>   application will also be able to browse, display and edit GConf.
>
>I think "PropertyEditors" as used in bonobo-conf are better and even
>easier to use.

You're assuming that all an application wants to do with configuration
data is to display a GUI to edit it. What if my application needs to
understand the configuration data (to transcode, convert, upgrade,
import, export, or modify programmatically) ?

Colm.

>- Dietmar
>
>
>
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