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Discussion on: External dependencies which read and act on environment variables?

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Dian Fay

I disagree -- getting configuration from the environment is like getting it from the registry in Windows. It makes sense for engines (Node), databases, web servers, and other system level software your average library or application developer installs separately rather than what their code depends on. Utility libraries have no business looking to the environment; that's what config files are for. The environment can change independently and with no warning, but a reserved file that has to be at least copied and pasted in is much more closely linked to the running code.