On Wed, Oct 29, 2003 at 04:26:27PM -0400, Ben Steeves wrote:
Mind you, SMIT's implementation wasn't perfect. Since the commands were built programmatically (SMIT is essentially a front end that runs the appropriate commands (or scripts)), they were sometimes less than optimal or needlessly pedantic (putting in parameters for flags that would be assumed as defaults, that sort of thing). Still, it was very reassuring (for a seasoned sysadmin because you knew exactly what was going on, and for a newbie because you could learn).
I think that the fact that SMIT had to do this was an indication that the whole configuration process was wrongheaded from the start in AIX. I have always felt that keeping a database and then overwriting a set of functionally write-only config files was the worst combination of possibilities available. (Yes, I was an AIX admin at one time, I'm not just spouting off.)
But then, I don't write config tools for Red Hat any more, that was my old job back when I re-wrote netconfig for the first time. :-)
michaelkjohnson
"He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes a book." Linux Application Development -- Ben Franklin http://people.redhat.com/johnsonm/lad/