Tip of the day: Did you know that users are put in the security-group known-users based on their reputation score or if they are identified to Services?Users in this group receive a number of benefits, such as being able to send more messages per minute. |
Translations:FAQ/413/en
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
There are several reasons for this, all of them being important:
- Size/readability: We want the example.conf to stay reasonably "small". It shouldn't scare beginners off. It should also not lead to a huge unreadable unrealircd.conf for anyone (beginners AND advanced users).
- Upgrade problems: From time to time (eg UnrealIRCd 4.0.x to 4.2.x to 5.x) we change the syntax of configuration items. Let's assume people use example.conf to create their unrealircd.conf (which is a reasonable assumption, as it is the recommended method and workflow of basically everyone in every software out there), then this would be problematic:
- Right now, with the simple unrealircd.conf we have, if we change an option that only 1% of the people use/have in their conf file then only 1% of these people would need to update their configuration file with the new syntax.
- On the other hand, if example.conf (and thus unrealircd.conf) would have every possible option then 100% of the people need to update their conf, even for an option that they never changed at all (and may not even know what it does).
- Old defaults: The same is true for changing defaults. From time to time we change the default value. This is impossible if every example.conf and unrealircd.conf already have a value set.. since then the default value is never used. That would be such a shame because we tend to pick "good defaults" and update them over time based on development and new insights, eg. more strict flood limits. It would mean all those people would be stuck with old defaults which may be less secure, less optimal, etc.
- Lots of extra (duplicate) work: Whenever the wiki documentation is updated, the example conf would have to be updated as well. So that would be more work but it is also easy for these two places to get out of sync, it is basically guaranteed to happen. Then it brings up the question which one is the correct one or more up to date, with all the associated problems. We have the same issue with some of the HELPOP items, but for documentation on settings it would be much more and a lot worse.
- Translations: Our example.conf is translated in multiple languages. If it would be much bigger then it would put more burden on our translators too, for every translator, so the work is compounded eg. 4 times if we have 4 example.xx.conf like now.