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Re:Should Apache replace its current httpd.conf with Lua? by growt on Thursday September 10, 2009 @10:11AM (#815256)
I prefer the nginx config style over apache2. Why the hell would anyone need a turing complete configuration file syntax?
Re:Should Apache replace its current httpd.conf with Lua? by barrkel on Thursday September 10, 2009 @03:31PM (#815995)
Turing completeness is a red herring and not an argument against using a language. Turing completeness is usually practically useful only to prove that certain analyses are impossible.

As to why, sometimes you want the flexibility of inferring settings from third-party data sources, or implicitly from the layout of the directory structure, or naming conventions, or any other thing you choose to mention. IMO the power of a programmable configuration language is that the configuration need not actually be written in the language, but stored somewhere else, and just retrieved using the language.