Package naming in D5

I'm still working on getting myself better organized within the new
Dolphin 5 environment. In loading Ian's updated Chunk Browser, the issue
of package naming got my attention.

The new hierarchical organization for packages seems like it's going to
be a nice improvement. But, unless I'm mistaken, the package names
themselves still need to be globally unique.

Now I don't mean to pick on Ian by any means, it just happens to be the
example that came up for me. Previously one of the packages had been
named "IDB Common". But now that it tends to live in the browsers under
"Ian Bartholomew\Shared" it's currently just named "common". Seems to me
that "common" is just too common a name <g> to use for a package in a
goodie distribution.

So currently, even though we have the package hierarchy for
organizational purposes, we need to just pretend that it doesn't exist
when it comes to the actual naming of packages. Right?

So is there an intention of moving toward always using the full pathname
in identifying packages? Would that be a good thing? How hard would it
be? Are there other issues involved?

Just trying to get sorted out on how to use these things...

-------------------------------------------
Bill Dargel            [hidden email]
Shoshana Technologies
100 West Joy Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48105  USA

Bill,

> Now I don't mean to pick on Ian by any means, it just happens to be the
> example that came up for me. Previously one of the packages had been
> named "IDB Common". But now that it tends to live in the browsers under
> "Ian Bartholomew\Shared" it's currently just named "common". Seems to me
> that "common" is just too common a name <g> to use for a package in a
> goodie distribution.

Good point. I'd renamed the packages while I was converting from D4 to D5
and didn't see much point in changing them back again.  As you say though,
different folders won't be enough to differentiate between packages within
the package browser so I will have to add the prefix back in.

> So currently, even though we have the package hierarchy for
> organizational purposes, we need to just pretend that it doesn't exist
> when it comes to the actual naming of packages. Right?

Yes

> So is there an intention of moving toward always using the full pathname
> in identifying packages? Would that be a good thing? How hard would it
> be? Are there other issues involved?

Probably not too difficult to do (make packages only match if both the full
pathname and short name are equal) but it might cause confusion in places
where only the short name is usable, the package tree for example, and where
you could then see duplicates. It might also cause problems with
prerequisite references if you move/rename the package file outside of the
Dolphin environment or copy packages to a different machine.

There's probably nothing insurmountable but as, IMHO, unique package names
have never really been a problem before it may well be best if everyone
keeps working the same way and just treats the extended folder tree
behaviour as an added bonus.

> Just trying to get sorted out on how to use these things...

Aren't we all ;-)

--
Ian
Due to spamming the reply-to address may only be valid for the next few
days.  Use it to mail me _now_ if you want a longer term contact address.

Ian, Bill,

A small, but significant, added benefit of the "old style" naming convention is
that tools such as the Method Browser will (or can be made to) collect all the
methods from one author together.  E.g. I name all my packages 'CU
<something>', so if I browse methods that refer to ,say, #columns, then by
clicking on the package column header, I can see all *my* uses of that selector
gathered together in one place.

    -- chris