[dev] [commits] Horde branch master updated. 89ba60ebd8227e84abe696131778097c4770d99d

[Chuck Hagenbuch]

Quoting Michael M Slusarz <slusarz at horde.org>:

>> That doesn't make sense to me, what's the purpose of two  
>> configuration files? Either configuration through foo.php is  
>> required, then we should still distribute foo.php.dist. Or we  
>> assume defaults for everything and consider the configuration  
>> foo.php as an override, if it exists.
>>
>> Only the latter is actually a solution for the problem I mentioned  
>> in the commit, because in this case, configuration files are no  
>> longer required at all. If we still require some configuration  
>> files, the problem of distinguishing between required and optional  
>> files still isn't solved.
>
> I agree with Jan.  We would be going from 1 config file to 2 config  
> files.  I fail to see how that makes things less complicated.
>
> And to make it possible for people to quickly understand what config  
> values can be changed, we necessarily need to list all of this  
> config information somewhere.  So it still makes more sense to me to  
> do this in a config file environment rather than anything else (we  
> must certainly should *not* be enforcing default values within the  
> actual code.  that makes no sense).

Well, that's where the idea for two files comes from. One lists what  
we think good defaults are, describes all of the settings, lists  
options, etc. The second, which is entirely optional, allows users to  
override the defaults without changing a file that is part of the  
distribution.

Think of it this way: with this system users automatically get new  
config settings while maintaining their customizations (except if the  
setting they're overriding changes, of course - no way around that).  
And if we pick good defaults, then there are fewer things needed to do  
out-of-the-box to get Horde up and running.

-chuck