title: Design Pattern for one-time loaded configuration properties?
body: <p>I'm often faced with the problem of storing, in memory, a few (possibly complex) configuration settings loaded from files on the filesystem. I'm wondering if there's a better way to architect a pattern to this problem, however, than what I've been using.</p>
  
  <p>Essentially, my current solution involves three steps.</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li><p>Build a singleton. Since data is persistent and guaranteed not to change through the runtime of the application, only one object instance should ever be needed.</p></li>
  <li><p>When the first request for the object is made, create the object and read in from a file.</p></li>
  <li><p>Expose data with getters.</p></li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>This has the effect that a lot of my code looks like this: 
  <code>MyConfiguration.getInstance().getWeightOfBomb()</code>, which looks rather odd to me.</p>
  
  <p>Is there a better way to handle this in a more semantic fashion?</p>