Ask HN: What is the best config file documentation you have seen? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What is the best config file documentation you have seen?

#11

Post by notRobot » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 8:39 AM UTC

llIIllIIllIIl wrote: post #8

php.ini Seriously, that is usually the easiest configuration i had to deal with. Although there are hundreds of configurable options, each one is thoroughly documented in the same file. Yaml config, although being better structured, rarely have any comments with explanation, and I’m still waiting to see one documented at 30% of php.ini.

Came here to say this. Configuring php.ini is actually fun for me. I love reading through everything in the file and often end up learning new stuff!

For those who've never seen it: https://github.com/php/php-src/blob/master/php.ini-productio...

Re: Ask HN: What is the best config file documentation you have seen?

#12

Post by citrin_ru » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 10:22 AM UTC

Nginx config documentation is one of the best I've seen. Things I like which are not common: 1. It specifies in which version a feature was introduced (if it was not present if first public release) 2. It is easy to send a link pointing to description of a specific directive e. g. http://nginx.org/r/env 3. For each directive docs tell a default value. It seems obvious that any decent documentation should have this but I've seen software for which it is hard to find out default values so you have to add into config many values just in case even if they are not different from defaults.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best config file documentation you have seen?

#13

Post by minhmeoke » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 5:40 PM UTC

The Dhall config language has a very persuasive landing page (https://dhall-lang.org/), nice docs (https://docs.dhall-lang.org/tutorials/Getting-started_Genera...), and also a great philosophy of preventing errors through correct design: https://docs.dhall-lang.org/discussions/Safety-guarantees.ht...