[Zope3-dev] RFC: Use ConfigParser for High-Level Configuration

[Jim Fulton]

Dieter Maurer wrote:
> Jim Fulton wrote at 2006-3-11 11:35 -0500:
> 
>>...
>>You haven't responded to my desire to use a single configuration file
>>for multiple applications.  Perhaps because you don't consider this
>>to be important, which is understandable.
> 
> 
> You guessed right.
> 
> 
>>I do consider this to be
>>important though.
> 
> 
> You can do this with ZConfig -- provided you describe the config with
> one schema -- eased by the extension mechanism implemented by
> Fred and Tres.

I don't want to try to make paste deploy or setuptools,
use ZConfig.  There are other tools out there that use
ConfigParser,

I'd like to be able to use configuration files for the
test runner, but I really don't want ZConfig to be a
dependency of the test runner.  I also don't want to
go through all of the gymnasics required to develop a ZConfig
schema just for the test runner.

> My main driving force to keep ZConfig is the wish for stability.
> I have the impression that in Zope3 land quite some things are
> introduced and shortly thereafter removed/deprecated again.

This isn't all that common.  But, being able to try things
out and learn from what doesn't work is a lot better than
sticking with something soley for stability.

Note that in my proposal, I proposed supporting the ZConfig
format, at least for a while.

> In contrast, I have the tendancy to keep things as long
> as they are usable.

Sure. As a developer, I just don't find ZConfig to be very
usable.  I think this ends up limiting what we can do for
end users. A good example is the way that the trace logging
support in Zope 2 reuses the logging configuration schema.
This provides options that don't make sense for the trace logger.
I assume this was done because it's too much of a PITA to write ZConfig
schemas.

I think Zope users would benefit from being able to mix and
Zope with other WSGI applications, servers, and middleware.
Paste Deploy provides a framework for doing
this.  I'd rather colaborate on something that exists that
have to reinvent it just to keep using ZConfig.

Jim

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