title: using protobuf as a textual configuraton file
body: <p>I recently encountered a very large mission-critical project where all the configuration
  files were defined using textual protobuf definitions. The configuration files are meant to be 
  human readable and editable.</p>
  
  <p>For example </p>
  
  <pre><code>message ServerSettings {
    required int32 port = 3022;
    optional string name = "mywebserver";
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Personally I found this humorous.
  But is it in fact a reasonable keep-it-simple technique, or clearly moronic ?!</p>
  
  <p>In other words, are there REAL, ACTUAL problems with this ?</p>