@staticmethod
def get_bool(config, key, default):
    """
        helper method - get the boolean value from a config entry,
                        which could be either boolean or string

        as we might get from the json a real boolean or a string, we use
        the %r to print the representation to generalize the processing
        """
    as_str = str(config.get(key, default))
    return as_str.lower() == 'true'
