Simon Wise <simonzwise@???> writes:

[...]

> If you have the dedication to GUI and the resources of a global
> mega-corporation it is possible to make a similar GUI actually respect
> the under-lying settings ... but it is incredibly hard work, way
> beyond almost any organisation. OSX did achieve this

Not at all, actually. It just means the front-end code has to work
directly with the backend config files instead of storing its
configuration in some more 'flashy' format, eg, xml-files or some ad hoc
created binary format and then blindly overwriting the 'engine'
configuration whenever the front-end configuration changes. I've
implemented something like this in the past for creating IPsec VPN
configurations via web GUI while retaining fully editable racoon
configuration files in the backend.

I conjecture this runs afoul of the "everything anybody else ever did
was completely wrong" aka "don't understand a word of it, what a
brainless mess" approach people whose experience is inversely
proportional to their self-esteem like to take towards anything.

NB: That's a perfectly stable condition of wanton ignorance and can be
kept up for fourty years in a row.