The level of indirection I'm referring to is between the source code and the deployment
descriptor. The source code refers to a logical name "cfg/xxx" and the actual value is configured elsewhere -- in this case the deployment descriptor. That prevents the value from being hardcoded. This is what's provided by the Java EE platform. In Java EE, it's perfectly
natural for the deployer to update things like env-entry values within the application deployment descriptor itself before deployment. It's part of the Java EE architecture.
The benefit is this configuration can be done without touching code or recompiling.
The additional (or second) level of indirection you're looking for is not defined by Java EE.
There's nothing stopping a Java EE implementation from providing a way to override portions
of the application in this way but it's outside the scope of the specification.
--ken
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