From: Mark Wilson <mwilson13@...>
Date: 2003-01-27T07:49:25+09:00
Subject: Re: Can we attack the 'not enough libraries' thing straight on?

This expands on what Alan Chen wrote below.

I agree that search functionality is necessary for RAA.  Archive 
entries should have useful keywords in the description so they can be 
found easily.  I think this can be done and still support browsing by 
category.  Browsing by category can also be referred to as "topical 
searching".

I continue to think that structuring the information space that is the 
archive would be very useful by making the archive more usable for 
users (who will have differing levels of knowledge about what the 
information space contains).  I also think that one categorization 
system should be determined first and then different views of that 
categorization system could be implemented that users could select as 
they chose.  I think this would be valuable to have even if no 
experienced Ruby user ever used it (i.e., if only nubies ever looked at 
it).

Finally, this discussion is not taking place in a vacuum.  We have the 
RAA.  There are four top-level categories.  There are a multitude of 
second-level categories (86 in Library, 69 in Application).

Looking at the current Library categories, it seems clear that many 
could be grouped into super-categories.

Examples include [Calendar, Date], [Algorithm, Array, Datastructure], 
[Net, WWW] and more.

Also, there is substantial duplication of categories, such as: 
[graphics, Graphics], [Regex, Regular Expressions] and [devel, 
Development].

Also, there are a large number of categories that contain only one 
entry and should probably be listed under another more general 
category, such as:
[Resource => resource], [Pty => ruby-tpty], [RPM => ruby-rpm], [Shell 
=> shell], [Parallel => mpi_ruby] and more.

When one looks at the current Application categories, it is more of the 
same, including that some entries under Application probably belong 
under Libraries.  An example is the following 5 categories under 
Application: (1) devel, (2) Devel, (3) Development, (4) development and 
(5) Development/Logging.

The next time Bruce Eckel spends 45 minutes examining the Ruby 
language, I would like for him to quickly see all of the resources Ruby 
has in a form that he can quickly grasp ;-)  See

http://www.mindview.net/Etc/FAQ.html#Ruby

The fact that the proposal might later be improved upon or transformed 
into something better is wonderful, but should not stop improvements 
that can be implemented now.

On Sunday, January 26, 2003, at 03:19 PM, Alan Chen wrote:

> I liked the proposals which separated the functions of searching in the
> archive vs. organizing the code from the archive.
>
> Browsing for a given functionality seems to be best handled through
> categories. (or Google search :) However, once a given library,
> module, or application has been located, I would think that accessing
> the code would be via a unique location in a heirarchy.
>
> The problem with code use from multiple categories is that naming
> would be ambiguous regarding a given interface or codebase. What if
> WWW::XML was the same code as Document::XML, but different from
> Application::XML..  You might end up loading the same library twice
> into different spaces, or you might end up supporting two different
> XML apis, etc.
>
> Of course it is always nice to be able to make local decisions which
> may be better suited to your particular needs and wants. Maybe if we
> provided a remapping mechanism:
>
> Local::Taste = 
> require_as('too/deep/into/the/standard/heirarchy/for/my/taste.rb')
>
> Other than that, some storage of implementation fields would be nice
> too: is it pure ruby, or an Win32 only extension, or a multi-arch
> extension, dependent on an external lib, etc... but I'm sure that's 
> been
> discussed before.
>
> [snip]