Re: Require Namepaces and RubyGems' effect on LoadPath problem

On 9/30/05, TRANS <[e-mail]> wrote:
> On 9/29/05, Austin Ziegler <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> I get it -- I also get that you're wanting to modify Ruby to match
>> your view of Ruby ... which I don't think others view. Did you notice
>> that *no one* has responded to your namespaces posts on ruby-talk?
>> This really does seem to be something that exactly one person has a
>> problem with. What additionally bothers me about this is that you
>> first raised it in ruby-core before bothering to see if anyone *else*
>> was having a similar problem on ruby-talk.
> Okay Austin, whatever. I'm tired of trying to honestly explain things
> to a person who only wants to tell others how much they suck.

If that's how you read me, then you're not able to read me at all. I'm
seeing you suggest something that has *great* potential for confusion
without benefit that isn't *better* solved in other ways. The confusion
factor is even greater since you modified your "namespace" idea to work
with "/" instead of just ":".

(By the by, a YAML file would be better for your purposes, and you can
modify setup.rb to install non-.rb files; see the CVS for PDF::Writer to
see how I installed .afm files, thanks to help from Aredridel.)

If namespaces are accessible through ns/path/to/resource, then how am I
to tell the difference between foo/bar/baz where foo is actually a
directory in $LOAD_PATH as opposed to foo that might be a namespace?
With ns:path/to/resource, the situation is mildly better, but I *still*
believe that the problem is better solved elseplace. (I also think that
some form of clear templating namespace is better, e.g.,
<ns>/path/to/resource. If one even bothers with something like this.)

I personally think that you're entirely *too* ready to change the Ruby
core when you get an idea in your head about how something should be
solved, even if there's a much *better* solution that doesn't involve
changing the core.

> And how he doesn't care about there's problems.

I care that there's problems. I just don't see what you're talking about
as a problem sufficient to make a pretty drastic -- and IMO ugly --
change to Ruby's core. Not to suggest that he agrees with me, but I find
myself very *conservative* toward Ruby's core like David Black.

> It's pretty sad. The real world is about HUMAN engineering problems.
> In reality there is no such thing as a computer engineering problem

Okay, let me be a bit more explicit. You're trying to make a LARGE
language change for a TINY language problem that is *mostly* (if not
exclusively) isolated to the collection libraries that you've created.

I've been using Ruby since 2002 and haven't seen a need for anything
like this. For the problem mentioned in ruby-talk:21296, there seems to
have probably been a bug related to search path order -- and no mention
of namespace is made at all. I found one such posting, but even the
person there seemed to think that it was a "neat" idea, not sufficient
for inclusion in the core. Sorry, but I just spent the last fifteen
minutes looking for it and can't find it.

> --people who believe otherwise generally expect others to do all sorts
> of arcane things and can't understand why they don't --you know, like
> write a Rake task to rearrange your lib before distribtion while
> substituting every require line accordingly and placing in stub files
> for all files renamed or deleted to give warning while documenting
> each file with endless ugly {{{ }}}'s for there clever little dev
> tools....

...and you're saying it's better to modify the core of Ruby because you
either cannot or will not arrange your libraries in a more user-friendly
way or use software engineering tools to take care of it for you
dynamically? Sorry, but I think one of us is making an unreasonable
request -- and it isn't me.

> Also, I raised it here first b/c if came into conflict with how
> RubyGems' changes Ruby --I was pointing that out while seeing what
> others thought of it. I did not expect much response on Ruby-talk but
> I thought I'd try anyway -- there are a lot of Nubys there these days
> --one wonders if its time for a second list (Yea, go ahead, tell me
> thats a dumb idea too Austin. I know you want to.)

I don't know if it's a good idea or bad idea to separate Ruby lists. I'm
not sure it's a *necessary* idea. Just as I'm *certain* that this
namespace idea is *unnecessary* for all but two software packages out
there. Both yours.

-austin
--
Austin Ziegler * [e-mail]
               * Alternate: [e-mail]