"Apache configuration" is the bit that makes your website work better. ".htaccess" is the thing that slows down your web server. People choose odd titles. :-)
now HN posts target a crowd that doesn't know what htaccess is?
I think it's been over 2 years since I last used .htaccess or Apache, having moved on to Nginx and separate application servers like Node, Gunicorn and php-fpm.