CFD: XMLification of NOTES

[Alexander Leidinger]

On Tue, 30 Mar 2004 08:46:18 +0000
Eivind Eklund <eivind at freebsd.org> wrote:

> On Sun, 28 Mar 2004, Alexey Zelkin wrote:
> 
> > At this point I would like to start some kind of discussion and listen for
> > your ideas which features you'd like to see in application which will be
> > handling these XMLs.
> 
> I'd like to not have XML, please.  XML is hard to read - there is way
> too much repetition compared to content.  If you have to change the
> syntax, please use something more lightweight than XML (or make
> absolutely sure we do not have to deal with the XML at the source level
> in any way except when adding or removing devices/options to/from the
> source tree.)

As far as I understand his proposal, he just wants to convert NOTES.
Your own kernel config stays the same. The benefit of this would be to
be able to check your own config for missing or conflicting parts.

In 4.x we don't have NOTES, and LINT is typically the file to read if
you want to add devices or options. In 5.x you can't read LINT as easy
as in 4.x, since it doesn't contains helpful comments. Reading NOTES
isn't that easy either, since it is "cluttered" with hints and you have
to read more than one file to see everything.

The benefits I see with the effort Alexey is willing to invest is:
 - it should be easy to generate a LINT for compile testing
 - it should be easy to generate a "LINT" with comments for users
   (or any other kind of documentation with the purpose as
   mentioned above or with a purpose someone from the doc team
   can come up with)
 - it reduces the amount of help requests because of missing or
   conflicting options/devices
 - it allows to automate tasks, which we even can't think of at the
   moment

We don't need XML to be able to do something like this, but XML can be
used to do it. There are a lot of people which know how to work with XML
(potential developers which may come up with very interesting ways to
work with this kind of inforamtion), there are a lot of tools which
allow to do various things with XML documents, and most importantly, the
person which is willing to invest his time into this topic thinks he can
do it better with XML than with something he has to invent/develop
himself.

>From a pragmatic point of view I like this. And it would be a pity, if
such a feature would be talked down because a lot of people dislike the
way it may be implemented (feel free to come up with a better
implementation). Personally I can't come up with a better implementation
which has the same public exposure regarding testing and feature-set
needed of the tools involved, so I will shut up now.

Bye,
Alexander.

-- 
                    I'm available to get hired.

http://www.Leidinger.net                       Alexander @ Leidinger.net
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