From: David Brady <ruby_talk@...>
Date: 2005-08-30T02:44:03+09:00
Subject: Re: Best way to release mini-libraries?

Kirk Haines wrote:

>Or should it be released as nothing more than a class file without any 
>installer, leaving it up to the user to make sure it doesn't butt heads with 
>something else?  Anyone out there who might use this who has an opinion?
>  
>

If I can include it with

require 'webcache'

I would expect Webcache.new to work.

If I have to include it with

require 'iowa/webcache'

I would expect to have to prefix Iowa:: to the namespace.  This would 
also imply to me that it isn't really standalone....

I'm not a Ruby authority by any means; is it possible to grab a naked 
module (e.g. something that imports directly into your namespace) and 
wrap it in a module?  If so, then your fear of polluting the namespace 
is overcautious.  This doesn't work, but you can see my intent:

------------------------------
class Webcache
  #...our Webcache class
end

# Iowa's Webcache imports directly, conflicting with our Webcache
# class.  Wrap it in IowaWebcache
module IowaWebcache
  # this doesn't work--require seems to import directly into top-level space
  require 'webcache'
end

w1 = Webcache.new
w2 = IowaWebcache::Webcache.new
------------------------------

Related:
- How can you achieve the desired result above, i.e. pushing an existing 
module down into another module?
- How can you reverse it, importing the contents of a module into the 
current namespace?  (e.g. Python's "import from" syntax)

If the end-user can manipulate the modules and namespaces freely, then 
my suggestion is to put the code in the most *convenient* place 
possible.  Later users can pack it away in another namespace if they 
feel the need.

-dB

-- 
David Brady
ruby-talk@shinybit.com
Grizzled C++/Python/Perl hacker. New to Ruby. Take my Ruby statements with the appropriate amount of salt.
I'm having a really surreal day... OR AM I?