Re: Naming modules (was: Re: getop-gnu-style.scm)

[Per Bothner <bothner@cygnus.com>]

> Actually, sun would reccomend org.gnu.math.IntNum, etc. Is your essay
> anywhere publicly readbale?

I hand't found it yet.  I mailed it to one of the FSF people, who was
going to add a link in the GNU Java page, but he hasn't.  I have I
ahve a copy somewhere ...

Anywhere, here is another posting on the same subject:


The GNU movement uses plain gnu as the top package for its Java
code, at my recommendation, which I stand by.  The purpose of a
package system is to avoid accidental clashes.  There is no
measurable benefit of using org.gnu instead of gnu.  I refuse
to be concerned over anybody who might use gnu as a package prefix
without co-ordinating with gnu.org - that's their problem, not ours.

Using the reverse domain name is an arbitrary convention, that
uses a specific property of an organization to generate a unique
name.  This property is no more intrinsic to the software than the
home telephone number of the principal engineer, longer to type,
and almost as ugly.  What happens if the domain name of a company
changes, or a ownership of a package is transferred to another
company?  Then people will still have to change their package names.

Scattering globally unique names throughout a program is plainly
a bad idea.  Unique names should at most be in a few header or
configuration files, where they can be easily modified, and where
they don't annoy people.

	--Per Bothner
Cygnus Solutions     bothner@cygnus.com     http://www.cygnus.com/~bothner