Code or Configuration or Configuration in Code?

With DevOps bringing source control to configuration files and publishing to production servers being automated – bringing both code and configuration over on the same time, the difference between code and config has become less than ever (if it even exists).

A few weeks ago I reread Mike Hadlow’s brilliant post The Configuration Complexity Clock. As I’m also in the middle of setting up publishing routines for a web application I started to think about the difference between configuration and code. The more I think about it, the less clear the difference is.

A simple attempt to differentiate them would be to look at where they are stored.

  • Everything in source files that are consumed by the compiler is code.
  • Everything in configuration files that are read at runtime is configuration.

Unfortunately that is not the entire truth. For example the route config in an ASP.NET MVC application is a kind of configuration – but it is done in code. The same is true for the Entity Framework Code First mappings – it is done in code (either through attributes or a fluent API), but is a kind of mapping configuration. An example of the other way around is startup configuration scripts (think of *nix .bashrc or the old autoexec.bat on DOS systems). It is configuration, but is run as a script.

There are definitely cases where it is not that simple to define what is configuration and what is code.

And does it really matter?

Software Development is a Job – Coding is a Passion

I'm Anders Abel, an independent systems architect and developer in Stockholm, Sweden.

profile for Anders Abel at Stack Overflow, Q&A for professional and enthusiast programmers

Code for most posts is available on my GitHub account.

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