[Web-SIG] WSGI and Configuration

[Ian Bicking]

Robert Brewer wrote:
> Meh. I'm just speculating that specifying this within WSGI could hurt
> its adoption more than help. If we chose to force XML adoption, for
> example, I'd be unhappy. But I'm willing to be convinced otherwise. ;)
> It'd be fabulous to standardize.

I'm not looking for any standard, I'd just like some feedback on 
conventions.  As we start poking things into the WSGI environment, it 
would be nice if we could agree on the API in there.  At some future 
point, maybe it will seem reasonable to standardize that.

I'm not even worried about configuration files at this point, though 
it's hard to ignore them entirely, as different file formats produce 
different output (e.g., .ini is fairly flat, vs. something like ZConfig 
or YAML which can be more structured).  Anyway, maybe we can support 
multiple formats, or let the server load the configuration in whatever 
way it feels fit, or whatever.

In regards to backward compatibility, I'm not too concerned about that. 
  Rather I would hope frameworks in the future will use this convention, 
at least as an option.  E.g., they could use an environmental variable, 
native configuration files, etc., but if they see configuration values 
in some agreed-upon location in the WSGI environ they'd use those as 
well (maybe with precedence, or maybe as a fallback).

This way at least the user has a chance of keeping their configuration 
files under control.  If they are already scattered about, then they can 
probably stay that way.

-- 
Ian Bicking  /  ianb at colorstudy.com  / http://blog.ianbicking.org