[Python-Dev] Winreg update (original) (raw)

Paul Prescod paul@prescod.net
Thu, 17 Aug 2000 08:58:00 -0400

Neil Hodgson wrote:

... The registry is just not important enough to have this much attention or work.

I remain unreconstructed. My logic is as follows:

You know the old adage: "anything worth doing..."

If the registry is just supposed to expose one or two functions for distutils then it could expose one or two functions for distutils, be called _distreg and be undocumented and formally unsupported.

The Microsoft.Win32.Registry* API appears to be a hacky legacy API to me. Its there for compatibility during the transition to the System.Configuration API. Read the blurb for ConfigManager to understand the features of System.Configuration. Its all based on XML files. What a surprise.

Nobody on Windows is going to migrate to XML configuration files this year or next year. The change-over is going to be too difficult. Predicting Microsoft configuration ideology in 2002 is highly risky. If we need to do the registry today then we can do the registry right today.

-- Paul Prescod - Not encumbered by corporate consensus Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it. - http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/perlis-alan/quotes.html