On 10/28/2012 4:41 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> On 10/28/2012 2:28 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>> The Windows registry. Apparently a lot of people hate it. Tom Kyte
>> refers to it as "the Microsoft copy-protection system" (which is odd,
>> considering it has absolutely nothing to do with copy-protection...)

A lot of developers write magic numbers to the registry so that when 
your trial period ends, uninstalling and reinstalling the application 
will not reset your trial period.

>> Apparently it's a *really* unpopular system.
>>
>> The Unix way has always been for programs to populate your home
>> directory with thousands of .rc files, each and every one of them in a
>> different randomly-designed file format.
>>
>> But now, there is a new hope for a unified configuration system. They
>> call it "Gsettings". And the hilarious thing is that it is COMPLETELY
>> ISOMORPHIC TO... the Windows registry.
>>
>> It consists of a binary file

STOP.

Why not XML?

>> In fairness, it's not /completely/ identical. The folders are called
>> "keys" under Windows, whereas Gsettings calls them "schemas". Both
>> systems store this stuff in a binary file, but Gsettings loads the key
>> definitions from XML files and "compiles" them into binary.

Okay, but why compile them?  It's not like drive space is a scarce 
resource anymore.

> Snort.. Actually, the problem with the windows registry are:
>
> 1. Can't read the damn thing, without the editor.
>
> 2. Things don't always uninstall cleanly.

That's mostly the uninstaller's fault.  I suppose there's a utility that 
allows you to record the registry changes made by an installer, so that 
when the utility is uninstalled you can follow up and scrub the registry 
completely.

5. All of your eggs are in one basket.  Yes, let's put the settings for 
your application, Jack's application, and the drivers for your hardware 
devices, all in one big file.  That won't cause any problems, no sir.

Regards,
John

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