John Joyce
12/22/2007 1:58:00 PM
On Dec 20, 2007, at 3:32 PM, Trans wrote:
>
>
> On Dec 20, 7:54 am, "Robert Dober" <robert.do...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Dec 20, 2007 1:24 PM, Trans <transf...@gmail.com> wrote:> Do
>> you think Ruby's standard library would be better if it was
>>> organized more categorically? Might it, in turn, encourage 3rd party
>>> library developers to categorize their libraries better as well?
>>> AFAIK
>>> net/ is the only categorized set of libs in the standard lib and
>>> Austin is one of the very few who religiously organizes his
>>> libraries
>>> in this manner.
>>
>>> Is categorization a good idea, or a waste of time?
>>
>> A good idea I believe, but only if it comes naturally. I have no idea
>> if categories could be applied already, maybe the SL is just not big
>> enough right now...
>> I believe that it might indeed be a nice thing for 3rd party
>> developers to have entry points into a tree.
>> I imagine things like
>> require "extensions/facets...."
>> or
>> require "text/ruport"
>> or
>> require "crazy/labrador/" ;)
>>
>> maybe one could peek over to Python or Perl and steal some ideas ;).
>
> I see it the other way around:
>
> require "facets/extensions/...."
> require "ruport/text/..."
> require "labrador/crazy/..."
>
> Whereby the first name represents a project/package and the rest
> indicates the categories. Ruby itself has no sub-namespace, of course.
> That stands to reason as it is all "toplevel". What would be
> interesting then is to be able to "include" a namespace. Ie. Something
> like...
>
> use "ruport"
>
> then
>
> requre 'text/...'
>
> But that's not really the main point. Just wondering about
> categorization in general. Unlike the Perl, where CSPAN provides the
> incentive to do so, the Ruby community doesn't seem to do much at all
> --and really there seems to be no standard ideas to speak of on the
> matter. For example, I recently talked to a maintainer of the Text
> project about perhaps a merger with my English project. His response
> was that he felt certain libs belonged to the Text namespace and
> others to the English namespace. But that's misconstrued IMO. I've
> never thought of English as anything more than a project name. By
> Tim's reasoning it would mean he has taken ownership of the entire
> Text category. Which is clearly silly. So that's why I think
> "{package}/{catagory}/..." makes sense.
>
> T.
>
I think this concept of <package_name>/<category_name> is a very good
idea. It does help to encapsulate things in a logical way.
As for other people's projects conforming...
unless something happens with ruby and gems on this kind of thing
(including adding some sort of namespace) you're likely to see
resistance from many people.
Many people are protective and sensitive about their libraries. Even
if it is open source they want control.
Some folks are more willing to let the software take on its own
existence.