From: dblack@...
Date: 2003-01-25T23:55:56+09:00
Subject: Re: Can we attack the 'not enough libraries' thing straight on?

Hi --

On Sat, 25 Jan 2003, David Garamond wrote:

> [I wrote:]
>
> > I admit too that I have a distaste for this kind of categorization,
> > because it freezes a particular, sometimes unconvincing snapshot of
> > how the pie is sliced.  But I haven't come up with any way to do away
> > with it entirely.
>
> well, if there are 1000+ public modules out there (and we like that to
> happen for ruby right?),

I certainly do -- I even started a thread trying to encourage it :-)

> people will sooner or later tend to organize the namespace
> anyway. it's nice to have one standardized way to do this.  on the
> other hand, organizing the namespace _will_ encourage people to
> submit their modules into the community (as is the case with
> CPAN). so i see it as a win-win situation.

I have to say, I think that lack of community encouragement to submit
modules is definitely not part of the problem here.  RAA is actually
quite active, and there's lots of encouragement, explicit and
otherwise, to share code there.  It's interesting in this connection
that a number of people feel that the problem revolves more around
searching and retrieval than around missing modules.

As for categories: it's probably a somewhat abstract point, but I've
always wondered whether decisions to group certain things together has
an effect on how people perceive the possibilities of software usage.
For example, an archive might have an XML section, but no SGML
section....  and it might have a Text section that's unconnected to
the XML section, and so forth.  In the end, I suppose one has to bite
the bullet and go with the familiar "AI, Algorithms, Benchmark,
Calendar...."-style view, but I'm intrigued by the possibility of
dynamic, equally (but differently) stratified views.

Of course this is purely an archive-searching thing.  On one's system,
a given module has to go somewhere specific.

ANYWAY... in order to live up to my own goal of not getting embroiled
in discussions about naming at the expense of writing modules, I
really should go look at Hal's list and choose a module!  :-)


David

-- 
David Alan Black
home: dblack@candle.superlink.net
work: blackdav@shu.edu
Web:  http://pirate.shu.edu/~blackdav