"mark.little(a)jboss.com" wrote : Configuration duplication leads to errors. Can we take an approach that reduces that? I think that's what we're trying to do :-) We're just trying to find a balance here. My point would be 2-fold in that you will always have duplication of one sort or another... if not normalised enough - excessive duplication of the actual config params if normalised to the nth degree - excessive duplication of reference id's etc, without a system to manage this referential integrity (unlike a DB eg). ... adding to that the fact that normalisation to the nth degree will definitely lead to fragmentation of the config on a grand scale => difficult to comprehend (perhaps not for all people ;-) ). So sure, we want to reduce errors caused by duplication, but surely we don't want to introduce another family of errors :-) View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=3993554#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...