

What if we had all these configuration knobs & switches controlled by a plaintext configuration file, and to replicate the configuration, we could just share the file? Maybe we could call it declarative configuration management?
Wouldn’t that be cool? We already have it (partially)?
Maybe an AI could guide us in preparing that file?
They’re still around and the various configuration technologies tap into them.
Pretty much the case here, too. It mostly works, and the parts that don’t are super annoying & require ad hoc script-fu.
Yep, configuring Microsoft has sucked incredibly hard compared to free OSs. Managing plain text configuration files in
/etc
&~/.config
is refreshingly nice compared to the bolt-on weirdness hidden behind various interfaces in Windows. It’s cute getting an error to contact your administrator when you’re the administrator.Attention in that area is extremely late & overdue, so I was happy to see something like
configuration.dsc.yaml
.I see AI mostly as an assistant whose work I review. I might give it a fully written text, tell it to clean up my clunky language, then review it. Or I might ask it to provide some answers with references & review those references.
AI won’t fix broken foundations.
I try to avoid Windows altogether if I can & confine it to less serious work.