At what point does a config file become a programming language?

Question

I have been mulling over config files and their relationship to code for a while now and depending on the day and direction of the wind my opinions seem to change. More and mor

Answer 1

I'm a big fan of using python programs as config files, especially for daemons. I like to take the tack of making the daemon completely empty of configuration except for the "configuration port". The python program then connects to the daemon and proceeds to create objects in the daemon and wire them together to create the desired configuration. Once everything is set up, the daemon can then be left to run on it's own. The benefits, of course, are that you get a full fledged programming language to write your config files and since you already have a way to talk to the daemon from another program, you can use it for debugging and getting stats. The major downside is having to deal with messages from another program coming in at any time.