Re: proposal: deprecate -readconfig/-writeconfig

[Gerd Hoffmann]

  Hi,

> Sometimes I feel like a broken and impartial solution is really worse
> than having none. If we don't truly support the read/write config
> options, we shouldn't pretend that we do.
> 
> Funneling users back to using the CLI is likely the better thing, even
> with no replacement.
> 
> I realize this is a pretty hostile thing to do in general, though, but
> it might truly be the kinder option to start simplifying and unifying
> configuration, documentation, and support efforts.
> 
> We don't have to actually remove it right away, either.

Removing doesn't buy us much as long as both cli and -readconfig are
using QemuOpts as backend.  -readconfig itself isn't that much code
after all, it is just an alternative way to feed QemuOpts.

I see -readconfig getting into the way when moving from QemuOpts to
something else (with proper tree support) though.

> We can just start sounding the alarms that we're preparing to remove
> it, and falling back to using the CLI would be a safe thing to do for
> now.

Yes, we should start sounding the alarms (aka deprecate it).  Not sure
"fallback to cli" is a good recommendation though, I suspect that might
not stay compatible either.

take care,
  Gerd