Patterns

Stefan brought up the desirability of defined XML schemas for Drupal configuration, and the niceness of autocomplete XML-aware editors could then provide.

Patterns module would appear to be the closest to providing this: http://drupal.org/node/353654

There is some conflict though, we think, between auto-generating and hand-editing XML (or any other) configuration files; changes should come from one source.

General

• PDF of an old but excellent Jeff Eaton presentation
• A surprisingly informative deployment discussion on Stack Overflow, but best comment is Jeff Eaton's mostly reprising his session above.
• Fairly balanced 2008 overview of deployment options by Greg Dunlap (author of Deploy module).

Plain Everything-in-code