[OT] Debian mailinglists

[Marcin Kasperski]

Derek Broughton <news at pointerstop.ca> writes:

> Marcin Kasperski wrote:
>
>> Are you sure answering 100 questions is less error-prone than
>> locating this single tweak you need to change and changing it?
>
> Why should a config tool ask 100 questions?  Or even 5?  A good config tool
> shouldn't need to be more complicated that editing - ie, search, change,
> done.

Well, go on fine-tuning it, you will end up with a text editor ;-)

Why 100 questions? Because there are hundreds of settings frequently.

>> Yes, reconfiguring remote sshd, firewall, or network interface is
>> risky operation. But it is risky by its very nature, not because you
>> edit config files. I strongly prefer to edit the file, being able to
>> see what I write and where and why, than to run some sequence of
>> questions which I can perfectly misunderstand or press Enter too
>> quickly.
>  
> How is that any more likely to happen with a config tool than when you're
> editing?

Because when you are editing, you can easily review the changes you
made as a whole, when you are answering questions, you have only
"small hole" picture at every moment.

(well, my own practice is to version control /etc and to review
diffs of what I changed, but it is advanced routine)

PS I am not quite sure what is this discussion about. Wanna click
instead of editing? Install webmin and play with it. Or some other
similar project.

-- 
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| Marcin Kasperski   | The cost of a few uncorrected non-critical
| http://mekk.waw.pl | human errors is less then the cost imposed
|                    |  by a process that tries to prevent them.
|                    |           (Booch,Martin,Newkirk)
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