Logging is still weird example to pick up for it. First, it make sense to have it configurable in production (and yes we ask clients to raise logging level in production we have no access to in case of troubleshooting).

Second, it is not like each java program would be inventing its own super complicated xml like logging configuration. It is pretty much always done the same standard way. Pretty much every java app uses one of two standard logging libraries and those libraries share the same API.

You can configure that standard API in xml, through properties file or in code and all three methods are basically the same thing in three different syntaxes. None of them is easier or harder then the other two and everyone is familiar with both xml and properties file one.

No one normally obsess about logging code too much. It is the least obtrusive easiest to do part of anything you can possibly work at.