I have used it in a couple of CGIs where non-programmers were going to maintain variables in the script. Something like:
__DATA__ Department Fish Gun Licensing Manager Trout Fishing in America Email trout@fish.net Department...
In the situation I was in, removing the config from the program would eventually lead to problems since the "maintainers" of the script wouldn't be able to handle it (I realize an admin feature in the script would have been even easier for users and allow the config to be separated out, but that adds at least a couple hundred lines of code and the project size/scope didn't warrant that kind of time).

In reply to Re: config file vs. __DATA__ by Your Mother
in thread config file vs. __DATA__ by Popcorn Dave

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":



  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.