There’s an interesting thread on C2 about Occam’s Razor and how it relates to software design. Simply put, Occam’s Razor is used in favor of the argument that a simple design is preferable to a complex design.

So if sum = nums[0] + nums[1] works, then why bother with for (int i = 0; i < nums.length; i++) sum += nums[i]; if it isn’t necessary?

Configuration Files

I was working on adding a configuration file to my HTTP server and had a bit of trouble deciding on what file format to use. I’m most familiar with XML and JSON formats, but when I searched for configurations in Java, the only thing that came up was a configuration.properties file.

If you’re not familiar with this format, it’s basically just a bunch of PropertyName=PropertyValue lines. For a while I was thinking, “This is too simple. I’m gonna need something more complex than that!”

After searching a bit longer for configurations, I finally settled for this simple file type. It was only later in the day that I realized this is the best file type for my application.

Why configuration.properties is Superior

This file type has a few benefits. Let’s take a look at each and compare.

<add key="PropertyName" value="PropertyValue" />

{ "propertyName": "propertyValue" }

PropertyName=PropertyValue

Syntax Errors

First off, you don’t really need to worry about syntax errors that can come up in XML or JSON formats. As long as you have an = sign and provide it a name, the configuration will be read.

Extra Words

The XML is probably the worst with this. It has all those extra words that I have to read just to find out that PropertyName = PropertyValue. JSON isn’t too bad, but there is some filler text here and there that the properties file doesn’t have.

Readability and Changeability

The properties file tells us exactly what we want to know: PropertyName = PropertyValue. No brackets, braces, or quotation marks. This is so simple that even a non-programmer could read, understand, and even update it quite easily.

Configuration Parsing

One final thing to consider with the configurations is how easily they can be parsed by an application. If we needed to write our own parser, the properties file would be by far the easiest to read. Just split each line by the = sign and read in every key-value pair.

Because of the simplicity that properties provides, I deem it superior to XML and JSON, assuming you don’t require the additional features that the other two provide.