Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!purdue!ames!lll-winken!ncis.tis.llnl.gov!aftac.tis.llnl.gov!carlson
From: carlson@aftac.tis.llnl.gov (John Carlson)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Tired C programmer (Really configuration files)
Message-ID: <166@ncis.tis.llnl.gov>
Date: 29 Apr 89 04:09:10 GMT
Sender: news@ncis.tis.llnl.gov
Reply-To: carlson@aftac.tis.llnl.gov (John Carlson)
Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore CA
Lines: 17


After several years experience with UNIX, something dawned on
me.  I know too many languages:  C, awk, sed, lex, yacc, Bourne Shell, C shell
and now I may learn UIL, Xcu's wlm etc., etc.  I know too many
configuration file formats: fstab, passwd, Xdefaults, termcap, exports,
etc. etc.  I know to many expression formats: regexp, X fonts, globbing.

Unfortunately, I am entirely unfamilar with LISP machines.
Given the same functionality as UNIX, could LISP
provide some uniformity; would LISP make a system easier to use,
administer, and develop on, or would I have to learn several
configuration file formats and expression formats?  Does
LISP vary formats as widely as UNIX does?

To UNIX people: Could all of these configuration files be standardized?

John "Maybe LISP isn't so complex after all" Carlson