Configuration languages are that way because they want to be secure.
The ideal configuration language should have more power, but exactly the same authority to interact with the world outside the configurated program as the configuration file wields; which is, none whatsoever.
People are used to thinking that real programming languages should be able to open files, sockets, disclose your address book to any Internet server of their choosing, and basically wield the entire authority of the program they run on behalf of. Which is very silly and very fixable, but then you would have to write your configuration in Javascript or some other dialect of LISP. And we can't have that, now can we?
Configuration languages are that way because they want to be secure.
The ideal configuration language should have more power, but exactly the same authority to interact with the world outside the configurated program as the configuration file wields; which is, none whatsoever.
People are used to thinking that real programming languages should be able to open files, sockets, disclose your address book to any Internet server of their choosing, and basically wield the entire authority of the program they run on behalf of. Which is very silly and very fixable, but then you would have to write your configuration in Javascript or some other dialect of LISP. And we can't have that, now can we?