Re: Using Lua for config files

["Matthew M. Burke" <matthew@...>]

I read the first several messages in this thread and was going to reply, 
but then other things got in the way.

I see today that the thread persists so hopefully the following is of 
interest to somebody:


For a long time I used AOLserver (http://http://www.aolserver.com/) 
whenever I needed to deploy a web server and I got to choose the 
technology stack.

Back in the day (late 90s) I would argue that it was the best server 
around--pooled db connections, a great API, open source, etc. In fact, I 
think it's held up well and the next time I have a personal web project 
to do, I'll probably use it.

Anyway, the config files often looked like a verbose key-value list, 
like an ini file, with sections introduced by

  ns_section <SECTION NAME>

and parameters defined in each section by

  ns_param <PARAM NAME> <PARAM VALUE>


but in fact, ns_section and ns_param were custom Tcl commands and the 
config file was parsed as a Tcl script.

I know that I and many of the devs I worked with appreciated having Tcl 
available because it allowed us to write config scripts that dynamically 
adjusted the server based on the environment to which it was deployed. 
It particularly made the whole dev, staging, production deployment 
process simple.

And although technically it gave us enough power to shoot ourselves in 
the foot, I can't recall any instance of that happening.

So I guess my 2 cents worth about allowing full-bore Lua scripts as 
config files is that it depends on your audience and your expectations 
for them.

Regards,

Matt