A little namespace "proposal"

goran.krampe at bluefish.se goran.krampe at bluefish.se
Tue Apr 6 20:39:28 UTC 2004


Martin Wirblat <sql.mawi at t-link.de> wrote:
[SNIP]
> >Eh... you lost me. "Many small namespaces in the Full image?" I assume
> >you are talking about the "many small packages"? I still think that 
> >is a good idea, at least much smaller than the current image.
> 
> You said: 
> So typically we have say these Namespaces (which I will use in the 
> rest of the post as examples) and many more:
>  Kernel
>  Collections
>  SqueakMap
>  Seaside

Oh, well that was only as an example. I haven't decided yet what kind of
granularity we want.

> >> My gut feeling was and is that the official Full image should be 
> >> only one single namespace. Of course the question then arises, what 
> >> the goal of such namespaces is. And surely this will have some 
> >> drawbacks, 
> >
> >I am not sure I disagree with that. I mean - that is what it is today.
> >But I still want to chop it up into well separated *packages* that can
> >have their own releases cycles etc. As Andreas says - those things
> >aren't one-to-one.
> 
> I am not sure either. But the problem is not to chop up the image into 
> packages that live in one namespace. This construction of namespaces  
> ( one for Full and one for every SM package not in Full ) will enable 
> loading together arbitrary SM packages into Full for a specific image! 
> We can even integrate (i.e. add and make a new Full ) single existing 
> SM packages to Full without name clashes. 
> 
> The problem will be only to integrate-add to Full packages from SM 
> which are conflicting without their shielding namespace ( everyone who 
> wants his package potentially being integrated in Full has to take 
> care of name clashes with Full - as it is today ). And some other more 
> ambitious things will not work at all. 
> 
> So in short, the main intention of SM would be fully delivered by this 
> "restrictive" namespace policy and your proposal. But, as I said, I am 
> not sure what weighs more, potential problems or potential chances. 
> Sure I am regarding the problem of replacing meaningful with 
> meaningless info. Many people are underestimating this problem, or 
> they are not aware of it at all. 
> 
> regards, Martin

Well, nice to hear that people like it at least. :) Btw, the "shy"
mechanism etc - in order to satisfy Andreas etc we might need it and
perhaps even an extra tweak. I will post again on that later.

regards, Göran



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