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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Scriptable configuration (with programming language) vs data / text configuration: what are the benefits? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Most applications provide you configuration files that are data / text based. Whether it is toml, JSON, yaml or some other format, you are usually defining values for pre-determined keys and that's all.

This makes sense for many applications, but involved applications have explored configurations that make use of scripting. For example, vim uses VimScript, neovim uses Lua, but vscode uses json (as far as I remember), and Helix (vim inspired editor) argues editor configurations must be data, not scripting, and uses toml.

many tiling window managers use various programming languages (Qtile uses python, xmonad uses Haskell, Awesome uses Lua) while others stick to data configuration (i3).

Do you think that scriptable configuration is over-engineered and brings weaknesses, or is it warranted and grants the user power in these big applications? What are the benefits of scriptable configurations?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Same here, I avoid using Jinja if at all possible because I just hate blindly poking at stuff like that. I wish the YAML portion had schemas available for autocompletion when editing, at the very least.
Ansible comes to mind as something in a similar vein, I've been messing with it pretty often these days. At least here you do get robust autocomplete support and whatnot that eliminates a lot of the guesswork, although Jinja is always a bit painful lol.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Oh yeah, and with Ansible there is an alternative to point to, Nix, which does configuration better IMO using a scripting language. It's still not typed so editor LSP support is limited. At least with NixOS modules and with Home Manager modules runtime validation is pretty good.