Echo JS 0.11.0

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misan 1052 days ago. link 1 point ▲ ▼
Nice idea, however:
* allow to utilize environment variables in 12 factor apps (dotenv additionally)
* writing configuration becomes necessary once you allow users to change details
* provide an async way to retrieve the config file (classes will not allow that in a constructor)
* cache the config file until it is changed
* watch for changes of the config file and notify consumers (observers)

I am still looking for a flexible configuration format/library, so I believe there is still a huge market for that to be explored. For my demands it was hard to find something really useful so far, so I had to bake my own alternatives.

In more strict environments (like when programming with FP paradigms), you maybe even want to configure not only data but also behavior. To express that in pure JSON files is probably not worth it, and we need to keep dependencies and raw data configuration separate.

Replies

tracker1 1051 days ago. link 1 point ▲ ▼
Understanding when to use environment variables (particularly for talking to other services in a system) vs. options or feature flags isn't always the most clear separation even for some experienced developers.

I can say on the config changing... for myself, usually only load at startup in a containerized service, or loaded via script from config/api service at startup for web-client.

What I'm using is pretty much wrapped around this: https://www.npmjs.com/package/@tracker1/config-merge

Supports rollup merging a configuration project including support for multiple language/strings variations.  I no longer use it out of the box cli, but am using the library directly either in the api or a dedicated config service.  Mostly configuration options as the software I work on gets deployed to different clients with slightly varying configurations.

I also inject CLIENT_* environment variables as part of a script output, that is the first script loaded into the web page, with a `__BASE__` global variable... in the application, I have a base.js that will do some normalization for access/testing, and also a language context in react that will set the current language/localization strings for use in the application.

I wish I could share more than the base library... trying to convince work to let me publish the config service and a docker image for said service...