Deleting parameters.

[Gerald (Jerry) Carter]

On Mon, 12 Nov 2001, Sean Elble wrote:

> My point here was that RPM offers the capability to run a script adter
> the installation; a migration script would be a perfect example for
> that "post install" script. Yes, someone would have to write that
> (ideally not me, since I can barely program Hello world in Perl :-),
> but I'm sure someone handy with Perl could put one of them out in less
> than a day. Could be wrong though, but it is definitely a capability
> worth investigating.

Right.  And i understood what you were getting at.  The problem
here is that we cannot rely on RPM to solve our problem
because then the migration path break when you use Solaris
(which I hear a few people still do :) )

> Here's the biggest point with which I agree on with you; any broken
> features have to be fixed or removed, PERIOD. No ifs, ands, or buts.

This follows the "Path of least surprise" principle.

> branch). The only thing I could disagree with you on is if there's a
> parameter in Samba that probably should be removed, even if there are
> vocal users who object to it being removed. What if that one
> parameter, like the security parameter, is holding back Samba from
> becoming better as a whole (at least in the 2.2 branch)? Users,

I'm not convinced that "security" is holding anything back.
That's really the point of this debate.

> Same basic concept, but taken a little further to include replacing
> out-of-date code with improved code, even if it does mean
> changing/deleting parameters. Just my (little more than) 2 cents . . .

Let's be clear here.  We are not debating on whether or not
old, crafty, outdate code should be rewritten to make Samba better.
We are talking about changing interfaces.  Changing a interface
in a module (and I'm referring to smb.conf as the module with the
interface being used by the sysadmin) means that all consumers
will have to be rewritten.

I'm am not against changing parameters (everyone know how much
I hate "read only/writeable/writable"), I'm just not convinced yet
and want to be enough of a pain that we think before we act. :-)








cheers, jerry
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
 www.samba.org              SAMBA  Team             jerry_at_samba.org
 www.plainjoe.org                                jerry_at_plainjoe.org
 http://www.hp.com        Hewlett-Packard
 --"I never saved anything for the swim back." Ethan Hawk in Gattaca--