Re: Require Namepaces and RubyGems' effect on LoadPath problem

On 9/29/05, Austin Ziegler <[e-mail]> wrote:

> That doesn't change that the primary purpose of namespaces in XML is to
> solve a real problem ... that doesn't exist in Ruby. Frankly, what
> you've written is code in search of both a problem and a solution. It's
> neat, but ultimately useless for anything meaningful or helpful.

"both a problem and a solution"? Come on Austin that's hyperbole,
fully illogical. Do you think I'd be wrting the code if I didn't have
a problem? I have a very real problem --and a solution as well. Why
you so desparetely want to shun this altogether I have no idea, but I
wonder if you are so hung up on RubyGems that you don't like the idea
of anything that might play in its ballpark. Namely overriding require
to do something USEFUL.

> >> I still don't understand how this namespace proposal improves things,
> >> other than to reduce typing. Can you give an example?
> > I use it to organize a very large library. I've organized the lib
> > according to principles that make sense for development --in this case
> > it's a collection of general purpose libs so I've put classes in one
> > directory, modules in another, etc. But I don't want the end user to
> > have to "path down" so far, so the namespace allow all the folders to
> > be grouped together. So intead of:
>
> Then it may make more sense for you to reorganise your lib for
> development. Or maybe -- just maybe -- it's time to split nano and mega
> into different release collections.

Yea, right. You really just don't get it.

> If that's not desirable, then reorganise the files dynamically during
> packaging. The Rakefile that I use to package PDF::Writer does *exactly*
> that with the .tar.gz files. I'd like to be able to get into that level
> of rewriting the internals of .gems, but I haven't yet asked for it.

You mean to tell me you rearrange the files just before distribution?
That's sounds like a pain in the rear. How do you handle the change in
require paths? Don't tell me your Rake file searches and replaces them
all too.

> > Morover, it makes it easy to add aliases. For instance this could work too:
> >
> >   mylibs/foo.rb
> >   mylibs/bar.rb
> >
> > As things stand there is no way to do this. One could use symlinks but
> > you'd have to maintain them and they are not cross-platform.
>
> Again, code in search of a reason and use. Why would you *want* to do
> this? It ends up *defeating* Ruby's load-protection mechanisms (e.g., if
> mylib/foo and mylibs/foo are the same thing, they *will* be loaded twice
> because they appear to be unique files).

No, b/c Ruby only requires the real name, after it's been converted,
not the namespace.

There are a number of reasons. In the exmple above it is to offer a
puralized alternate --not a big deal, but if its easy enough... More
importantly perhaps some files have been moved around, all your end
users will now have to alter there programs to the new locations. With
this you could offer backward compatibily for a while, throwing a
warning until people had enough time to make the changes.

Another interesting possibility that you probably have not considered
is that it could help with packaging on different systems. Say for a
user on Windows where all the files are kept in a Programs dir, vs a
user on Debian where they are spread out. Directrory namespaces are
really just a means of redirection after all. Granted  my idea would
need to be expanded a bit, but it could be done.

T.