ConfigParser shootout, preliminary entry

[Eric S. Johansson]

Michael Foord wrote:
> Config file reading is an area where python is 'well served' with
> various options.
> For sheer simplicty of use you can't beat my ConfigObj. It reads the
> file and presents the values as a dictionary (keyed by keyword of
> course). It supports writing hte file as well. The trouble with with
> using attribute names is that you will have problems with keywords
> that are reserved - like 'print' and 'pass'.

well served yes but they are all basically the same.  For camram, I 
needed a different configuration file service and I put a wrapper around 
the stock with a configuration file utility.

Configuration data is composite of three data sources, global, shadow, 
and user.  In global are the system defaults, shadow contains local 
system overrides, and user contains user specific overrides.  the global 
configuration file contains the patterns describing the locations of the 
shadow and user configuration files.

I was experimenting with some other features based on how people might 
want to use and anti-spam system, I added the ability for the user to 
delegate or merge certain aspects of their profile of another user.

I will admit it's a bit of a dogs breakfast because I've made so many 
passes and tried out a bunch of different things over the past year. 
One of these days I'll go back over it and simplify things.

---eric