Thoughts on language-level configuration support?

[rustom]

I am not sure I understand your solution. I certainly think that the
problem is big, very much bigger than is appreciated.
Think of the hoopla in the RoR world about convention-over-
configuration.

On the other hand I feel that emacs is becoming messier and messier
because it has taken up something like your idea.  Originally there
was only setq (lisp for assignment).  Now there is the whole customize-
mess.  Then again I guess its not the idea that is wrong but its
current state of implementation.  To elaborate on this mess would be
too OT for this list.  Nevertheless its a good starting point for the
kind of thing you are talking of.