Is it bad practice to include properties/configuaration files within jars?

Question

For example:

MyApp is a web app that contains a properties file (server.properties) that describes config data (e.g. server names) for the app. In the development phase

Answer 1

Frequently it is a criteria that code should be migrated UNCHANGED from test to production. This implies that you may not edit embedded configuation files. Also you may end in a situation where you need to change a deployed configuration - which frequently is very cumbersome. Hence, we leave the configuraiton outside the jars.

For Java EE applications consider JNDI or a property file in the classpath.

I have a web application where the configuration is retreived from a neighbor web application simply to separate the two. That turned out to be much easier.