[Lazarus] Lazarus config woes

[Hans-Peter Diettrich]

Michael Van Canneyt schrieb:

>>>>> Well, definitely not on Unix. On unix, the EXE directory should 
>>>>> never contain config files.
>>>>
>>>> I dare to disagree. A SVN checkout is writeable, and this is where 
>>>> the EXE is stored, along with the related source files. Consequently 
>>>> the config should be stored there as well.
>>>
>>> No, no and once more: no.
>>>
>>> This is a typical Windows user reasoning which is total nonsense on 
>>> unix.

Please note: your assumption about Windows is absolutely wrong.

>>> You should never ever leave a config file or an executable in a source
>>> directory, it's plain wrong to do so. I don't know a single unix 
>>> application
>>> that does this.
>>
>> Reality check, please!
> 
> I think this applies to you more than to me :-)
> 
>>
>> Your considerations apply to standard installations only, not to SVN 
>> checkouts.
> 
> Try compiling any unix application from source

Please don't shift the context :-(

It doesn't matter how an application came to a machine, as long as only 
the latest version of it is used.

Try compiling different versions of any unix application - this is where 
repository checkouts enter the scene. And then try to use all these 
versions in parallel...

 > (be that from CVS, SVN or
> a .tar.gz). Then check whether it takes its config files in the 
> directory *where it was compiled*, as you propose. You will see that no 
> such thing exists on unix.

This is the typical situation, also on Windows. And we all know that 
this is not suited for working with multiple versions in parallel :-(

> For really configurable tools, you get a command-line option to specify 
> a location, different from the default /etc or ~/.yourapp.
> 
> Lazarus has such a command-line option, see the mail of Vincent.

Right, but this is only a workaround, that requires much care in making 
it work. Did you ever notice the many error messages and warnings, at 
the first start of a another Lazarus installation, when it tries to 
initialize itself from an inapplicable default configuration?

Just the newbie, and even the average user, should not be burdened with 
remembering the location of the configuration, that applies to every 
single Lazarus installation. No wonder why many peoply consider Lazarus 
still unusable, when another try to install and use the current Lazarus 
version fails miserably, because it uses the configuration left over 
from a previous try :-(

DoDi