in reply to config file vs. __DATA__

I'm curious as to what concensus is here regarding putting data in __DATA__ as opposed to building, reading and parsing a config file.

I'll use __DATA__ for personal stuff and demos, but if there's any risk of something escaping from the laboratory, it gets a proper configuration file (or external template file, or whatever).

__DATA__ is too deep into a file to expect casual people to look. And it's the casual people who create the biggest support burden.

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom