At what point does a config file become a programming language?

Question

I have been mulling over config files and their relationship to code for a while now and depending on the day and direction of the wind my opinions seem to change. More and mor

Answer 1

One of the purposes of the "Oslo" work at Microsoft is to permit (though not require) resolution of this issue.

1. An application would ship with models of any new components it includes. It would also use existing models. For instance, it might include a web service, so it could reuse the system model of a web service.
2. The models will include metadata describing them, including enough information for tools to access them, either textually or graphically.
3. Parts of the models will correspond to "configuration"

This means that the equivalent of todays configuration files may be rich enough to support both textual and graphical editing of their configuration. The graphical tool will be supplied with "Oslo" (code name "Quadrant").