Mongrel2 Cannot Defeat Ninjas

Zed, I think the narrative in your docs is partly to blame.<p>It starts with an awesome sqlite config engine, and continues, almost as an afterthought, to a possible application: a python-like configuration file (section 3.3).<p>It seems to me users want to know about that configuration file first. Sure, some of them will evolve into power users, eager to hear about the internal sqlite3 engine and its endless possibilities. But that's later, and frankly is not as important. What proportion of mongrel2 users will programmatically drive its configuration? I'm guessing not that many.<p>I for one am an automation freak and am very excited about this design. But you can't blame everybody for misunderstanding it. After all, the very first command in the tutorial has "config.sqlite" in it. That's <i>before</i> you talk about the actual config file format!

Almost as funny as "You write a distributed map-reduce function in Erlang!".<p>I think people are reacting out of bad experiences with other binary file configuration systems. Examples: windows registry; Solaris as LDAP client (ok, so the stored files might be text today, but the documentation disavows their format and declares the command line is the One True Interface); Solaris smf (again, text files underneath, but the documentation deprecates their format); Gnome configuration (I'd be grateful if someone could point to useful documentation there, or some kind of road map).

Zed is confusing for malice what can adequately be explained with incompetence.

Zed, I totally get what you're saying. I do think ninjas exist in larger teams, but maybe that's not a mongrel2 priority, which would make sense.<p>The bit that gets me that I think some take issue with is that there's a human readable representation of the configuration <i>that does not actually represent the configuration</i> . Except when it does, sometimes. Even usually. But there's no guarantee. Not saying your decision is wrong (any more than "language x os wrong", but it's a reason why some people may not like it.<p>I almost wonder sometimes if the configuration should be solely accessible through an http API, just to shut people up. ;)

I find the p.s. completely incongruent with the rest of the post.