[Zope3-dev] Re: More thoughts on packaging

[Philipp von Weitershausen]

Tres Seaver wrote:
>>> I know, for instance, that in my perfect world, there wouldn't be little
>>> dinky text files (or xml crud) required - this stuff _can_ be 
>>> expressed in Python, and I'd prefer that it is.
>>
>> I'm certainly -1 on using XML for this, and I don't have a problem 
>> with using Python syntax.  But the single file approach has got to go.
> 
> -1 for Python syntax;  Turing-completeness is a *disadvantage* in a 
> configuration language (e.g., why is ZCML not in Python?  why ZConfig?)
> 
> WRT the format, I am agnostic about the spelling, but anti-NIH suggests 
> that we should adopt a widely-supported parseable format:
> 
>   - ConfigParser style INI files (order can't matter, some restrictions
>     on spelling section and key names).

+1

>   - An XML dialect of some sort (we should be looking to how Debian and
>     RPM are spelling the XML variants of their package specification
>     files).

I find more and more people who are increasingly sceptical of ZCML, 
mostly because it's XML. They would really prefer a simpler style. 
ZConfig is very popular among them. I personally think using an 
XML-variant can have its advantages when it comes to parsing, 
validation, editing (-> relaxNG schema, etc.), transforming etc. But 
simplicity counts, too... "Simple is better than complex".

Philipp