Re: [extremeprogramming] About placing configuration defaults

Yes, definitely all of these and may be more. What if instead of trying to accommodate all use cases through configuration we configured system's context or environment? And let the system figure out the rest? 

Intuitively, describing the constraints of the environment should be much less verbose.

Slava

> On Nov 21, 2019, at 3:31 PM, David Allsopp via Groups.Io <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> 
> On Thursday, 21 November 2019, 07:13:48 GMT, Slava Imeshev via Groups.Io <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> 
> > Just a thought, what prevents us from having ‘configure-nothing’ systems? Or, if it existed, how would it behave differently if such an approach existed?
> 
> 
> Well, that's potentially a huge topic because it depends on a lot of context.
> 
> Why do we need configuration? Some random thoughts:
> 
> - because different users want to use the same code in different ways on different hardware at different times
> - because of switching back and forth between different modes of operation, without having to manually change dozens of settings
> - because the context (OS etc) doesn't contain the user-specific information the application needs (e.g. git needs your name and email address)
>   - and even if it does, you might want to change it for an individual application
> - because we run the same code in different environments (and the code cannot necessarily inspect the environment and/or deduce the desired way to run there)
>   - e.g. running the same data processing code on a 100-node shared cluster rather than a 10-node single-user cluster. 
>     How many nodes and how much memory should a given job use? That depends on a lot of information...
> - because there are external dependencies that cannot (possibly by design) be known by the visible environment (except by some other form of configuration)
> - because security credentials can't be safely built into the code (and may expire, too)
> 
> and so on.
> 
> But I do agree it's useful exercise to consider each configuration entry and think hard about whether it could be eliminated...
> 
> David
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 


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