Spring started supporting alternative config langugages due to user demand and the general distaste of XML (which was tending to be counter Spring’s argument that it is an antidote to J2EE and EJB – as that was all steeped in myriad XML config files).

Here’s Terrence Parr’s take on the subject matter:

Humans should not have to grok XML
(Answers to the question “When shouldn’t you use XML?”)
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-sbxml.html

Then finally, contrast these two files in respect to the application.properties include and the first two bean descriptors:

http://vossnet.org/applicationContext.xml

http://vossnet.org/applicationContext.jfig.html

The old-style Spring XML version is very verbose.

is JFig language syntax efficient and clear (and better than Spring-Framework’s XML DSL)?
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/384890/is-jfig-language-syntax-efficient-and-clear-and-better-than-spring-frameworks-x

JFig™ – alternative metadata config language for Spring
http://dobbscodetalk.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=922&Itemid=85

Or:

final Object o = someJNDIContext.lookup(“fargBarg”);

(Have a look at http://java.sun.com/products/jndi/tutorial/objects/factory/index.html in conjunction with this.)

Or:

final Iterator allInstances = java.util.ServiceLoader.load(someInterface).iterator();

interface Factory<D, E> {
public E acquire(D description);
}

So you could have a Factory<String, Socket> or Factory<Map<String, Object>, DataValue>