Re: Thoughts on language-level configuration support?

On Apr 1, 8:56 pm, CTO <debat...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
 I just mean that there should be a
clear and easy way to do it, that it should be considered a basic
service, and that if the best way to satisfy all the goals is to
integrate it directly into the language, that shouldn't be shied away
from.

Honestly, the programming language and the configuration languages
should never, ever, ever be inseparable. I don't see a reason for
it and I see some great reasons not to do it.

I'm not saying the actual end-user configuration language would be
tied to the programming language. I'm starting to think a better way
to describe this is to play down configuration as a use case, and
instead focus on what the actual mechanism is: a way to define points
in your program that can have values injected into them at runtime by
some external entity, a uniform naming scheme for those points derived
from the code, and a way to expose those points to interested
consumers.


The example that I have on my blog post, I consider that 'syntax',
even though it's implemented as a function, mainly just because it
digs into the bytecode and modifies the normal way a function is
evaluated (the function's value is determined by where the output
would go).

I don't particularly see why this is needed.

It was a stab at the 'uniform naming scheme' - the function fetches a
config value based on a key derived from the name of the variable its
output will be assigned to. It definitely needs more thought, but at
least I got to play around with the bytecode tools :)


To my mind the strongest
argument you are making, by far, is the "discoverable" argument. If
you were able to build a system which permitted other components to
discover configuration options and give configurable levels of
permanence and visibility to them, that would be great. If you were
able to do it and make it easy for a programmer to interact with, you
would most definitely have a module I would use. But I daresay you're
going to have to build it (or at least mock it up) before you're going
to get a lot of folks jumping on the bandwagon, and its a *long* slog
before you hit the level of support and stability you're going to need
to convince folks to trust their precious config files to it.

Agreed, and I do intend to do a proper mockup when I get the time; I
just wanted to get some initial reactions. Thanks for your feedback.

.