(14-09-2020, 08:15 AM)z3bra Wrote: I think managing dotfiles is adding complexity and pain to an environment.

The less configuration files I have, the better I am.

Now you sometimes need dotfiles, so for these special cases, I try my best to keep is short enough, so that rewriting it entirely is faster than pulling dotfiles from a remote server.

I'm with z3bra here.

With time I am moving from programs with involved configuration files to programs configurable via environment variables, X resources (for X programs) or command-line arguments. Thus, I only have to change my .profile (or .Xresources) and set the appropriate variables, or create a wrapper script calling the program with the correct command-line arguments.

Or, in the last case, I use programs configurable at compile time via config.h (but most of the time, in those cases, I change the source for the program to read environment variables so I can change its configuration at runtime).

Only programs with a really complex interface or that should read a database for being usable that I accept as having a rules file. In those cases, I move their rules files from ~/.* or ~/.config/* to ~/rules/* (I call they “rules files” rather than “configuration files”).