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From: Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: The problem With Windows
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2024 22:18:24 -0000 (UTC)
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
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On 23 Mar 2024 21:12:28 GMT, rbowman wrote:

> On Sat, 23 Mar 2024 05:51:01 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> 
>> The Registry was introduced as a replacement for config files because
>> app developers were scattering those files all over the place. So in an
>> effort to tidy things up, Microsoft devised this thing called the
>> “Registry” and strong-armed developers into using it.
>> 
>> So now, they scatter their config settings all over the Registry.
> 
> That was a Good Idea for a while.

No it wasn’t. Replacing one form of clutter with another was pointless, 
and replacing text config files with a binary format was a really dumb 
idea.

The right thing to do would have been to enforce something like the Linux 
Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, where system config files go into /etc and 
other writable system data into /var, with each package/subsystem using 
its own file/directory names to keep things separate.