[U-Boot-Users] RFC: hidden environment variables

[Wolfgang Denk]

In message <462D2B85.2010707 at freescale.com> you wrote:
>
> > Why do you worry about the "interference from  the  user"  part?  The
> > whole  idea  of  Free Software is thatit gives you all the freedom to
> > use the hardware and the software the way *you* want to use  it,  and
> > not  only  in  the restricted ways some manufacturer decided would be
> > good for you.
> 
> That's a strawman argument.  We're not talking about free vs. proprietary, this is just a 
> usability issue.  Obviously, the user can hack whatever he wants.  That doesn't mean that 
> we shouldn't design features that make certain things easier to use.

It's a matter of taste. Some find it  easier  to  navigate  with  the
mouse  through  drop-down  menues,  others prefer to type a few magic
characters at a command line interface. Making  things  easy  to  use
means allowing both.

> This is really all about permanent storage without using setenv, but taking advantage of 
> the environment infrastructure.  If some U-Boot module wants to store data in flash, then 
> as a user I'm probably not interested in the layout of internal data structure.  I just 
> want to piggy-back on the environment code without exposing two user interfaces to the user.

You don't  expose  two  user  interfaces.  Make  it  clear  from  the
documentation  that  the  user is not supposed to manually chage this
variable. Heck, if you really want then make it difficult by using  a
non-printing  character in the variable name. But please don't try to
tell your users that you know better than they what's good for them.

> > Implement the command with all checkings yoiu want,  and  then  store
> > the information as a normal environment variable. Why hide it?
> 
> To keep it simple from the user's perspective, and to avoid having to support setenv.

The user will probably not care much about  a few more cryptic
environment variables. And you don't have to support setenv.


Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

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