From: nobu.nokada@...
Date: 2002-07-08T11:59:07+09:00
Subject: Re: What to use for OS-specific module namespaces?

Hi,

At Mon, 8 Jul 2002 11:18:49 +0900,
Joe Wreschnig wrote:
> Maybe there should be some standard (e.g. Perl has sys and sys/linux
> which is mostly a C holdover I think). Maybe OS::Linux, OS::Windows,
> etc? It would allow OS::Linux::Debian, OS::Linux::RedHat, and things
> like OS::Linux::Proc for things that are cross-distribution, similar
> things could be done with with Windows and OS::Windows::NT,
> OS::Windows::9x, OS::Windows::XP (which would in theory mix in NT and
> 9x), and OS::Windows::Win32 for the common APIs.

I agree about the first sentence, but cannot imagin the
needs/advantages for per-distribution namespaces.

> On the other hand, those are really long namespaces; on the other hand,
> their length might discourage writing non-portable code. ;) Although,
> the "OS" space is probably removable without much harm.

If I were you, I'd implement in long namespaces and provide
short aliases.  For example, in i386-linux/os.rb

  module OS
    module Linux
      def self.processor
	# ...
      end
      module ACPI
	# ...
      end
    end

    # shorthands
    def self.processor
      Linux.processor
    end
    ACPI = Linux::ACPI
  end

...but I worry wheather processor is an attribute of OS.  May
SysInfo or something be better?

-- 
Nobu Nakada