[Nitro] Simpler configuration method?

[Malte Milatz]

I'm looking at the first message of this thread, trying to understand
what is being discussed. Please don't take this as a rant, I'm really
trying to understand your views, by asking questions:

George Moschovitis:
> The main drawback of the current version is that you have to 
> define the classes to be configured before executing any configuration
> code and/or require the glue/configuration.rb file. This prohibits 
> the reusability and flexibility of the configuration files. 

I don't really get the point you're making here. What reusability? If I
set some attribute, I always know what attribute I'm going to set on
what object. Why would I want to use a library without loading the
library? Why would I want to configure something I do not use? 

> Moreover, as the configuration system uses annotations there is a
> slight performance penalty that may be serious if a configuration
> variable is used in a tight loop.

Actually, this Annotation thing strikes me as a programmer as a little
odd. A server's root directory is an attribute of this server, thus it
is natural to do something like

	server = Framework::Server.new
	server.root_dir = my_dir

Opposed to that, it is not the job of a class (here: Server) to care
about the root directory of my specific server. If I do not instantiate
the server myself, i.e., the framework has done this for me, then the
lines above would read something like

	server = application.server
	server.root_dir = my_dir

or

	application.server.root_dir = my_dir

but never

	Framework::Server.root_dir = my_dir

At least that's my understanding of OOP design. 

Now, who is going to enlighten me? :-)

Malte