From: Robert Feldt <feldt@...>
Date: 2001-12-05T16:40:26+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:27531] Re: Package Naming

On Wed, 5 Dec 2001, Dave Thomas wrote:

> The Perl solution is to have a module hierarchy. My markup program
> might be in text/markup/simple.rb, and users would do something like
> 
>   require 'text/markup/simple'
> 
>   m = Text::Markup::Simple.new(...)
> 
> or
> 
>   require 'text/markup/simple'
> 
>   include Text::Markup
> 
>   m = Simple.new(...)
> 
I think we should go with a "logical" module hierarchy. IMHO, its better
than the java convention since I'd like my code to talk about what it does
(and I find text/markup/xml more informative than
com/foo/bar/SUPERDUPERXML) and not about organizations etc.

> However, this solution has its own drawbacks. As a user, all these
> long strings of names it pretty daunting. As a module writer, it's a
>
Ok, but IMHO clarity wins in the long run over brevity...

> pain to refactor, and moving things around ends up affecting a lot of
> source code.  Also, until Matz gets
> 
Ok, not sure how to adress this.

>   module Text::Markup
> 
> implemented, you end up with a fair amount of additional indentation
> in deeply nested files
> 
>   module Text
>     module Markup
>      module OutputFormatter
> 
>        class ToHtml ....
> 
Not a major problem IMHO.

> 
> So, what do folks think? Should we start implementing module
> hierarchies, or is there a better way. Should RAA.succ enforce all
> this?
> 
I think so yes. One can base the hierarchy on Perl or on some of the
classification schemes for CS papers. I have'nt got a link right now
but'll try to find one. The idea is basically that one divides the CS
knowledge into a hierarchy and people specify the areas their paper
adress. However, they can specify multiple areas so maybe not the right
way to go...

Regards,

RobertF