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How Long Does it Take You to Tweak a New Box?
An anonymous reader asks: "When you get a new computer, how long does it take to make it 'home'? On a Windows system, there seem to be a huge number of preferences I have to choose before it is really comfortable (doing things like: installing software; changing the wallpaper and color schemes; start menu layout; and so forth). How long do you have to fiddle with computer until you have it set up the way you like? Do you use any shortcuts to speed up the process?"
Nobody's found out how long it takes on linux, they're still working at it! ;P
Whereas with Windows, it doesn't take long at all... before you realise that it is impossible. :-)
www.wavefront-av.com
Gentoo works nicely too.
o otstrap-macos.xml
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/gentoo-alt/prefix/b
Or you can get pre-built binaries from http://metissian.com/projects/macosx/subversion/. They're a little behind though.
After all, I am strangely colored.
You assume I wasn't laughing.
Here, I'll add one for you too 8^)
There now it's all funny.
Where else could the discussion go but immediately degrade into a giant shitstorm? I just thought I would get it over with.
IF YOU ARE CORRECT, you must have a reasonable justification for the use of the registry that is credibly better than using a flat-file approach. I bet you don't have one. :)
* Better performance (parsing text files is expensive)
* Better security (best you can do with flat files is break them out into more flat files with less content in each, vs each Registry key having its own ACL)
* Greater reliability (Registry operations are atomic, hand-editing text files isn't)
* Better consistency (how many different ways of formatting a text file are there ? How many different ways of editing them ?)
* More human efficiency (how many times has the text-file-parser wheel been reinvented ? How much time has been wasted figuring out how to format the text file ? How much time has been wasted because sometimes there's a difference between spaces and tabs ? How much time is wasted trying to find badly-named files in inconsistent locations ?)
* Input validation (what stops you putting text where a number should go in a text file ?)
The Registry is sound software engineering. The train wreck of drunken-vomit-esque ASCII randomness in /etc, by comparison, has only a single, corner-case, redeeming feature - it's easier to recover by hand (as opposed to just restoring from backup) in case of disaster. Like most aspects of UNIX, it reeks of a quick, short-sighted fix thrown together in an afternoon that's subsequently been hacked, patched, bent, twisted, kludged and evolved for 30-odd years afterwards until it has become so embedded into the psyche of the typical UNIX nerd, that they're like child-abuse victims who simply cannot comprehend a life outside of the tiny locked room they get their nightly beatings in.