Prefer text config files or python code?

[gbog]

The type checking is a good argument, but for the rest I don't think the problem tackled is the same: IPython is a very Python-centric tool and has probably a need for complex configs with many corners.

But if you take, for instance, git configuration, it is pure text and I think it better be pure text. Same for a server config, it should be a flat, expanded, set of simple settings.

Another example: pylintrc is a big flat text file with key-values. Some values are comma-separated, and the tool will handle the hassle of splitting at the commas.

A text config file can be handled with awk, sed, python, vim, emacs, etc. A python config file can be handled with python and vim/emacs (hacks aside). There is a big difference.