apaci

[Dean Gaudet <dg...@arctic.org>]

Someone I know just tried APACI... and his comments are below.  Ralf,
don't take this the wrong way.  I think APACI is a good start... but I'm
concerned that the documentation oversells it to the point that folks
think it is the only way to do things.  Maybe it just needs to be made
more obvious that folks can continue to use the old method. 

Dean

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Man the apaci stuff looked good on paper, but man it is ugly to use.  I've
never ever used such an unfriendly configuration interface in my life.  I'm
am embarased that this is even seen by a user.  To put commetns like this is
the wonderful future in the instructions is a joke, and a bad joke.

Ease of use grade = F

I understand the problems and the documentation does make it look like a
good solution but it is evil.  A product such as apache needs incremental
configuration, and there is no excuse to deny that.  And to *remove* the
Configuration.apaci file on a "config --help" is a total joke!

I'm sending this to you 'cause I have to vent, please ignore it if you
wish.


A) It provies no additional functionality over Configuration other than
   shortcuts.  The standard way to do this is via templates - not magic
   scripts.

B) The lack of incremental change means it is useless as a configuration API
   for other scripts.  It is not abstracting the config file in a useful way
   for a GUI or a menu.  A front end must keep state, so now the GUI has to
   still do this.  Look at Linux for a far better example.

C) The complexity of installation has increased with no gain to users or
   programmers.


---------- Forwarded message ----------

So I gave up, did a "cd src; vi Configuration; blah blah" and was up and
running in 15 minutes :/ why did I waste the hour and a half reading a
fucking with apaci?

Re: apaci

[ra...@bellglobal.com]

> C) The complexity of installation has increased with no gain to users or
>    programmers.

This point simply isn't true.  Lots of PHP users are extremely happy about
this new configuration interface because it makes it easy for them to build
Apache with PHP as a shared module.  Also, being able to give someone a
recipe for compiling and installing Apache + PHP that does not include an
"Edit the Configuration" file step is extremely nice.  The point was never
to build an installation mechanism that kept state or to build the backend 
for a GUI.  The point was to build a command-line process that mimiced a 
known interface like autoconf and could be used to completely configure
Apache in a single step.  As such, it works very well and if people are 
expecting more or less, then it is a documentation problem.

-Rasmus