Roberto Perillo wrote:
Sean Keane wrote:From the view point of the person starting the server, you could view the magic-cookie as a key which allows the admistrator to specify that they only want to start a database containing their known key e.g. "I only want to start databases containing my special key of 23".
Well, I kindda' agree. But I'd say that it would be better to place this kind of information in a .properties file. Because this is more of an infrastructure information.
This is all theoretical as I think we all agree that allowing the user to specify the magic cookie value wouldn't be the way to go for this assignment.
But whether it is infrastructure or not would depend on the requirement. Since each of us probably has our own idea of the non-existent requirement, then we'll have our own opinion
.
It's conceivable that an admin user who is starting up the server may want to enter their "special key" through the user interface.
Either way, whether you hide the functionality to specify the magic cookie value in a properties file, or you make it more obvious in the GUI, the end result is the same in both scenarios. The core functionality is that you are allowing a user to pass the magic cookie value into the program.