[Info-vax] Changing SMTP server presented hostname in UCX

[Paul Sture]

On 2014-09-09, Bill Gunshannon <bill at server3.cs.scranton.edu> wrote:
> In article <lumsjt$if5$1 at dont-email.me>,
> 	Stephen Hoffman <seaohveh at hoffmanlabs.invalid> writes:
>>
>> IMO, hand-edited configuration text files aren't the way forward for 
>> system and network configurations, either.
>  
> I have heard this (and seen it done) from many corners but I certainly
> don't agree.  Sometimes you just want to change something simple and
> having to redo the whole mess just seems like a lot of wasted time.
> And, when things go wrong and a human has to fix it it is a lot easier
> if they can actually see and understand what they are dealing with and
> not the way some config program is interpreting it.  I would love to
> know just what the supposed advantage of binary configs over human
> readable ones is.  Unless it is an attempt at obscuring data to protect
> ones job.  Sometime abstraction is a good idea, but not always.

Memory, initialisation performance and Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Many moons ago we used the approach of intermediate binary files because
we didn't want the overheads (memory, runtime) of a text parser in
application startup.  Separate utilities to turn text files into binary
files meant that the syntax checking was done in those, not by the runtime
app.  Think of bytecode compilers for data structures alone, no code.

>From the app's point of view, at startup the sizes of the various bits and
pieces represented by these binary files was worked out at compiler time
so it was a simply matter of allocating the various memory structures and
reading binary data straight into them.  This was a definite win on
application startup times.

Remember that this was an era where there was a clear separation of duties
between operators and development staff.  The idea of precompiling config
files suited this environment well.

-- 
Nothing says poor craftsmanship more than wrinkled duct tape.