Thoughts on language-level configuration support?

[jfager]

On Mar 31, 3:30 am, CTO <debat... at gmail.com> wrote:
> On the one hand, I can 110% see why you want to reduce boilerplate
> code and provide a discoverable, common mechanism for automating the
> two and three-quarters parsers that a lot of applications have to
> write to handle a config file, CLI, and/or registry values, but why
> introduce a syntax for it? A module would do just fine in terms of
> function. Are you worried about the look of it, or do you want to make
> a change to make it seem more "mainstream"? I don't see the
> rationale.

Syntax is kind of a rubbery term.  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.

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).