[Web-SIG] [Proposal] "website" and first-level conf

[Sidnei da Silva]

On 3/9/07, Jim Fulton <jim at zope.com> wrote:
> On Mar 8, 2007, at 4:36 AM, Chris Withers wrote:
> > I'm interested to hear these too since all the microsoft apps I
> > know of tend to have a "one folder" model...
>
> Yeah, that's why I don't use Windows. :)

That's not a good enough excuse. :)

> For years, people word
> files ended up in the same directory with the word applications.

I think that predates my involvement with computers, or you're
misremembering something.

> If I was a windows server administrator, I would want the software to be
> separate from other artifacts.

Log files are usually separate from software. For example on XP, IIS
5.1 logs to C:\WINDOWS\system32\LogFiles. As you've already mentioned
most configuration ends up on the registry. I don't see any mixing of
software and artifacts going on.

> I'd want to be able to update or
> reinstall the software without losing configuration.

Well-behaved software will never touch your configuration. I've
developed several installers using Inno Setup and you always have the
choice to say what files should be deleted or not on an uninstall. The
Zope Installer for  Windows never deletes the INSTANCE_HOME.

> I'd want
> configuration data to be managed separately.  This, of course, is
> what the windows registry does.  It puts all of the configuration in
> one place that is separate from the software install.  I'd expect
> logs to be managed separately.

That's totally fine. It could go to C:\WINDOWS\system32\LogFiles too,
or it could just log to the NT Event Log, and then you can configure
all sorts of things related to for how long those log files are kept.
There are also great tools that allow you to query those logs just
like if they were SQL databases.

-- 
Sidnei da Silva
Enfold Systems                http://enfoldsystems.com
Fax +1 832 201 8856     Office +1 713 942 2377 Ext 214