CFD: XMLification of NOTES

[Kris Kennaway]

On Wed, Mar 31, 2004 at 07:48:04AM +0200, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:
> In message <20040331054419.GA44221 at xor.obsecurity.org>, Kris Kennaway writes:
> 
> 
> >Don't change the topic.  XML is not required for any of that, and
> >someone could just as easily write those tools without it.  Similarly,
> >it's just as wrong to assume that changing to XML will magically cause
> >all these tools to appear.
> 
> It is true that XML is not required, but XML is the format chosen
> by the developer who has actually spent time on this, so I don't
> think you have a particularly strong voice to critize his choice
> unless you plan to spend your own time working on this issue.
> 
> Why the f**k are we so quick to shoot our own developers in the
> back in this project ?

Alexey's email did not mention the existence of a prototype
implementation, only possibilities for future work.  Go back to my
previous response to him, where I pointed out that extraordinary
claims require extraordinary proof, and if he wants people to accept
the initial step he needs to also provide a sufficiently good proof of
concept to justify the pain of transition and maintenance.

For example, I'd love a kernel dependency checker -- you may not be
aware that I spend a lot of time answering support emails from people
who didn't read the comments in NOTES or GENERIC about required
dependencies of things like umass (that one comes up on questions@ at
least once a week).

It's the "if you build it, they will come" that I don't like: as you
well know, FreeBSD does not have a good history with people making
partial architectural changes under the assumption that someone else
will finish the job later.  If Alexey carries this to completion and
comes up with a useful, usable set of tools, I think that's great!

Kris
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