[mmcnickle]

I would argue that it's better for configuration and application logic should be separate though. You can run the same appliation with a different XML configuration without modification of the source. You couldn't do the same with in-comment configuration.

[blowski]

Wherever this is likely to happen, I wouldn't use annotations. For example, I use YML for environment specific variables.

But I don't need routes or fieldnames to be different only in one environment, so annotations work great there.

[Garoof]

Fair enough. Then it sounds like your problem is really with annotations, and not that much about the in-comment part of this.

[mmcnickle]

Yes, and it's not limited to PHP. I don't particularly like how Flask (python) uses decorators for its routing as well.