We have a new tech talk coming up on May 17th, from our very own Dominick LoBraico. This one is about how to represent configurations with programs. In some sense, this is an obvious idea. Lots of programmers have experienced the dysphoria that comes from watching your elegant little configuration format metamorphize into a badly constructed programming language with miserable tools. This happens because, as you try to make your configs clearer and more concise, you often end up walking down the primrose path of making your config format ever more language-like. But you never really have the time to make it into a proper language.

The obvious alternative is to just use a real language, one that comes with decent tooling and well-designed abstractions. (And ideally, a functional language, because they tend to be better at writing clear, declarative code.)

This talk discusses what happens when you try to put this obvious idea into practice, which is less, well, obvious. I like this kind of topic because it represents the kind of hard-won knowledge you can only get by trying something and screwing it up a few times.

So please join us! You can register here.