josh wrote:PHPHorizons wrote:but any competent person could handle it.
Dude, some of my clients type website addresses into google instead of their address bar. By the same logic I could say any competent person could handle writing their own app instead of buying yours.
I believe I have already answered that argument:
The moral of the story, as is the case many times, is use the right tool for the job. text, php, json, xml all have proper uses for ini settings. There are advantages and disadvantages to both.
There are times when "dummy proof" solutions are required. That sounds like one of those situations.
One thing, Josh, that I noticed about a lot of your arguments in this post (
viewtopic.php?p=572950#p572950) is that your arguments (which are good arguments) are based on focusing on the weak points of a particular method and then basing an argument about why something shouldn't be used based solely on that.
Leaving out the strong points of a method and only focusing on the weak points obviously makes that method unusable at all. It's the balance of the weak and strong points of any given method vs the weak and strong points of any other method that should be used to determine the best tool for the job.
For instance, it's been mentioned that one can make an interface that would edit the config settings. If the job requires an interface for editing settings, then all of the weak points for any method that involve requiring users to have technical knowledge of the config format are blown away. Any brittleness of a format is obsoleted as well.
On the other hand, if you know your user will be going into the config file manually, and likely does not have technical programming skills, then a text ini file is likely going to be the most familiar environment for them and would be the best tool.
Another consideration may be access of the config file. If the config file has to be in a public folder, the .php file has an inherent advantage over .ini or .js in that the .php file will not reveal the contents of sensitive info like the database connection details to the world. Being inherent means that it is perfect for the non technical user who might not be acquainted with .htaccess or may not have .htaccess files enabled. But if the files can be stored in a private folder then any of these file types can be used with a non technical user.