---
title: "Config Hell"
url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2003/4/7/config-hell.md"
canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2003/4/7/config-hell.html"
published: "2003-04-07T03:56:00"
updated: "2003-04-07T03:56:00"
tags: []
author: "Roy Osherove"
description: "I really don't see the reason for .config files to be read only at run time. Why should i have to create my own class to persist to the XML file, or worst, have a copy in memory of the values, since any changes I would…"
usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)."
license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# Config Hell

By Roy Osherove April 7, 2003

**Historical article** · Originally published April 7, 2003; technical details may be outdated.

I really don't see the reason for .config files to be read only at run time. Why should i have to create my own class to persist to the XML file, or worst, have a copy in memory of the values, since any changes I would make to the config file at runtime will only be live after application restart (This is ofcourse only regarding winform apps. web.config behaves differently).The point is, How is that not a part of the system? It seems very easy to implement, and its just another step in the config direction anyway.

One more thing: Unlike INI files, i see no way to use multiple values per config value. I'd have to implement IConfigHandler and all sorts of other adventures for that to happen.

Now, Are those things really asking too much?


---

## About the author

**Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery.

### Sites

- [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership.
- [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts.
- [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin.
- [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model.
- [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps.
- [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes).

### Social

- X: https://x.com/royosherove
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/

### Contact

- Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7

### License

Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/