Monday, January 07, 2008

nobrainers and non-brainers

I'm a pedantic and small-minded jerk for pointing and haw-hawing at spelling mistakes on the Web, but I enjoy it too much to stop. Today's example is using "non-brainer" in place of "nobrainer". Harmless misspelling because it should get the same point across, "self-evident". But entertaining, if the reader misinterprets "non-brainer" as "brainless".

Using an XML file for application configuration may seem like a nobrainer. After all, XML is simple and universally supported.

However, in some scenarios, attributes/annotations are sufficient. In some scenarios at the other end of the complexity spectrum, a static XML document isn't flexible enough to do the job, so doing the configuration in actual code (but nevertheless calling the whole shebang a DSL) is necessary. So while XML configuration can seem like a nobrainer, it may in fact be closer to a nonbrainer.

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