From: "David A. Black" <dblack@...>
Date: 2004-11-18T04:32:12+09:00
Subject: Re: [ANN] rpa-base 0.2.3

Hi --

On Thu, 18 Nov 2004, Mauricio Fern�ndez wrote:

> On Wed, Nov 17, 2004 at 11:58:35PM +0900, David A. Black wrote:
> > > versioned require, and nicer to third party port/package systems (think
> > > of Debian for instance).
> > 
> > Can I put in a plea for not cultivating the "program2" syndrome in
> > Ruby programs and libraries?  Maybe it's just a pet peeve... but I
> > really hate it when, a year or two after setting up a system with kde,
> > xchat, apache, libxml, etc., I'm suddenly running kde3, xchat2,
> > apache2, libxml2, etc.  Those are silly names for programs, whereas
> > the original names were relatively reasonable.  
> 
> I personally don't find them silly; de gustibus non disputandum est.

Would you name a project "myproject3" on its first release? :-)

> It makes sense to follow that convention for libraries, and there are
> good reasons to do so...
> 
> > The prospect of everything having to end in a number as a packaging
> > workaround suggests to me that something needs to be addressed in the
> > packaging system. 
> 
> Are you going to contact developers from FreeBSD, Debian, Fedora, Suse,
> PLD, Gentoo, etc to make them change their systems?

No; as I said, I'm hoping that this won't become customary in *Ruby*
projects, and was hoping that an archive like RPA wouldn't cultivate
it.  But it doesn't sound like my hope has much hope :-) 

> > Surely having a package/program/library name and a
> > version number as separate things is not only more aesthetically
>   ==============
> It's not primarily about the version number itself but about an API
> declaration.
> 
> Since the new RubyMail will have a completely incompatible API, it is
> de facto another library -- and no longer the original "RubyMail", hence
> the possible need for another name. RubyMail2 shows its heritage.

It's one of many possible ways of conveying that information.  I like
the more modular approach: project name, version number (including API
version).  

> > appealing but vastly more scaleable.
> > 
> > 
> > David (who intends to keep calling Ruby Ruby, whatever its version :-)
> 
> Unless when referring to Ruby 2 I guess...

Yes, Ruby 2, when specifically referring to something unique to Ruby
2, but not Ruby2 as the name of the language :-)


David

-- 
David A. Black
dblack@wobblini.net