At 06.06.96 Andrew Grillet squeezed among other things this out of his/her keyboard:

 DG>> From a support standpoint, binary INI files provide less
 DG>> problems than ASCII INI files. 

 AG> The whole message of the Un*x experience is that things should be done
 AG> in text mode unless this is physically impossible - for debug and 

I don't see the advantage. Even if you use text-mode profiles, you still
need something like an editor to change contents. And if you use binary
profiles you also need an editor to get your hands on it.

The only question should be, is there anywhere a good editor to do the
neccessary job, or not (the editor has to be delivered with the OS, of
course). How the editor works and the way he manages the data dosen't
really matter.

If the handling of the profile for the programmers is easier with binary
ones and binary profiles are more flexible, why not use them, if there is
an good editor out there?

If you want to edit text-files you also need an editor.

 DG>> After time, the INI becomes bloated and overall performance 
 DG>> can suffer unless its cleaned out.

 AG> And can a normal user do this?

That's a problem of the OS designers. And, by the way, if you have a text
profile - do you mean it is easier to maintain, it is easier to understand,
what you have to change, what you may delete and what you must not touch?

Do you really think, a textmode profile can't get screwed up as easiliy as
an binary one?

Until the next mail...,

Stefan.
http://www.ruhr.de/home/acme2/
PGP fingerprint =  95 1E A4 B5 ED FB 78 EC  8C B9 D5 36 20 FB 23 68

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