[devxpy]

The problem with code as configuration is that the config file is indeterministic and it takes longer to extract information from the file.

This has long been a problem in the python/pip community, as its basically impossible for the build tools to determine the dependencies of a package without fully downloading and running the setup.py file.

Static config files are static for a reason!

[makapuf]

Unless you import rand() your code should be deterministic. You're right about needing to run the thing to get the data (that's the point) but there is a middle ground between pure literals and fully side effects code. By example you could impose pure functions (no side effects).

[lmm]

That's exactly what Dhall is doing.

[marcosdumay]

That's what Haskell already does. Dhall is optimizing on different dimensions (making sure the script execution ends, making the scripts verifiable at static time, making it convenient to marge files, making it convenient to centralize your configuration).