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Comment by gaogao | Hacker News Reader

You can actually use Python as a configuration file pretty well, if you need more complicated logic and macros. Otherwise, sticking to a toml or ini file is my preference.

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Are you gonna embed a Python interpreter into your C# programs though? Better to use something like dhall that's at least open to being loaded from multiple languages.

Hahahaha. No. I don't care to ever be forced to write a C# program. I write my applications in python, running in trusted environments. If I need optimized low-level code (which wouldn't be C# either), I access it as a library from within the python glue. Dynamically importing config files works extremely well.

I like your point, it goes against the lambda-ultimate post linked separately in the thread. If you accept your point (cross-lang-loading) and accept the LTU argument about the benefits of internal DSLs (you're not slowly reinventing a useful turing-complete language) then you would maybe want to use a very simple, easily interpreted language for your DSL and embed an interpreter for that. (I (can't (think (of any though))))

> then you would maybe want to use a very simple, easily interpreted language for your DSL

Right, which is essentially what Dhall is. There aren't any established "real" programming languages that are restricted enough (non-Turing complete, etc.) to use for this kind of case.

> (I (can't (think (of any though))))

S-expressions are never going to succeed; there are too many subtly incompatible variations going around already, and their fans are unwilling to compromise and agree on a common standard.

This is what IronPython was invented for.

INI is the best config format imo since you can't do anything more complicated than assigning a value to a key in a namespace. The Dist::Zilla config file was a real eye-opener at what you can achieve with this kind of siimplicity.

You need to specify which INI config file format, unfortunately. There are many different ways to handle leading & trailing whitespace, quoting, multiline strings etc. and I think all of them have been implemented at some point.

> the Dist::Zilla config file

Agreed, hopefully ini files have lost the Windows stigma enough to be used everywhere.

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