As a long time sysadmin (30 years) I much prefer the declarative model for configuration files, for the reasons Carwyn points out. Obviously, the declarative specs have to be implemented somehow, and that's where the procedural model comes in. Do we need a module somewhere that takes the declarative configuration as input and produces the procedural specs as output? Rick On Saturday, August 2, 2003, at 06:33 PM, Carwyn Edwards wrote: > there are subtle differences between this action/procedural model > and a declarative model that states package versions to have on a > system though. Being able to see the state of a given machine at > any given point in time is simpler with a simple list declaring > the state explicity rather than adding deltas. i.e. if a machine > starts in state A then you apply delta <update1> then <update2> > etc. > > These kind of considerations come into the frame when you are > thinking about accountability and traceability - e.g. an ISP that > want's to show that it _did_ have a security patch installed when > that DDoS happened.
