Yup, I do. I LIKE XML CONFIG FILES. I especially like them when working with the Spring Framework. That’s why I have no interest in Guice. I’m almost disappointed to see all buzz by the Interface21 guys on the other options for doing bean definitions. Guys, if you’re listening, spend more time on working on new features, or bug fixes. Don’t waste time working on ways to do things we can already do with XML config.
Anyhow, the main reason I’m writing this post is that Craig Walls will be speaking at the Spring Dallas User Group (SDUG) tonight, covering how we can clean-up, or improve our xml config files. Should be a good talk for people that embrace using xml for config and want to improve the model.
Hi Erik
I agree, three cheers for XML! Hurrah!
As for the other configuration options that Spring provides, I agree with you in that regard too. Hurrah! Well… to a degree anyway. Hur!
Now that all that hurrah’ing is out of the way, I’ll say that Spring has, continues to be, and always will be about flexibility. If folks want to use different configuration styles then they are free to do so… Spring’s IOC container has always been divorced from the representation of the metadata, so the new configuration options are easy to add and don’t require any changes to the core code. The fcat that they are easy to add means that folks like Juergen get to spend less time implementing them and more time writing new features 🙂
As for me, I’ll stick to the XML too, until something compellingly better comes along. Hurrah!
Cheers
Rick
Thanks for stopping by Rick!
It’s good to hear another +1 for xml config. Craig’s talk last night was a big +1 for xml config, however, he did spend some time on other options for config.
Erik
XML is so 90’s. Convention over configuration is the new paradigm, which frameworks like Guice & Stripes nicely embrace. It’s good to see the Spring guys getting on board with this. You have to be a masochist to actually “like” XML configuration files. I’d rather focus on the code, not 1000s of lines of XML. This goes double in a team environment where you’re not even maintaining your own XML.
-Tim