Re: Issues on Umit while identifying paths in a portable manner

[Diman Todorov <diman.todorov () chello at>]

On 07.08.2007, at 13:37, Adriano Monteiro wrote:
> Another problem that exists on Umit, and probably exists on most open
> source projects, is that some configuration files may get old and out
> of date. Installing new versions of Umit would require the update or
> replacement of the old files. The last approach is the better one for
> developers: there is no such thing as "rm -rf ~/.umit" and recreate it
> again using the new configuration templates. But,  using this refined
> technique, users will lost their target list, options added to
> options.xml, profiles, umit preferences, and a lot more. The other
> approach (updating the config files) is better for users, but can turn
> into a nightmare to maintain, mainly after several updates.

that's a problem which exists not only for oss projects but for any  
project which needs to access persistent data. Contrary to widespread  
belief, the problem is not remedied by using xml or even a  
persistence framework. There are basically only two things that  
really help. The first one is to think thrice about your data model.  
Try to keep your config files as generic as possible. The second is  
to keep things who's syntax changes often separate from things that  
have a stable structure. It is preferable that parts which require  
heavy user interaction, like their scan profiles, don't change too  
heavily or too often. If you do change the syntax for storing a  
user's carefully crafted profiles, make sure you provide a script  
which will convert their old config file to the new syntax.  
Automating the conversion is even better.

cheers,
Diman

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