Re: Oaf naming, a proposal.

[textshell t-online de]

Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
slightly reordered
> 
> Michael Meeks <michael@helixcode.com> writes:
> 
> > Hi Maciej,
> >
> >       Firstly, many thanks for your prompt and considered reply;
> >
> > On 29 May 2000, Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
> > > * There is no appropriate handling for independent free software
> > >   projects. Using a catchall namespace like "GNU" or "GNOME" just
> > >   means that portion of the namespace conveys 0 bits of information
> > >   and may as well be omitted.
> >
> >       True; but then again, in the free software community we mostly
> > have an enlightened view of cooperation and naming, not available to the
> > ISV community.
> 
> I don't think that's the case. Note the `ee' conflict. I bet more such
> conflicts could be found if you look hard enough.
> 
> > > Objections to using the project name:
> > >
> > > * Software product names definitely do not have to be unique; only
> > >   within the same category of software. Even in the free software
> > >   world where we are supposed to be all cooperative and stuff (and
> > >   there are fewer total projects than in the commercial world by a
> > >   long shot), we've had naming collisions.
> >
> >       Sure, but in the commercial world there are non-conflicting
> > company names, furthremore I would argue that many of these name conflicts
> > are based on the shell hackers love of terse command names such as 'mc',
> > 'ls', 'ee' etc. This problem tends not to apply to desktop software to the
> > same extent.
> 
I think these name conficts will always be around because there are
small
open-source projects out there too, not just such killer application as
nautilus

> > > * It gives too much attention to the company. I wouldn't want Nautilus
> > >   in the Eazel: namespace, I'd want it in the GNOME: namespace. I
> > >   imagine non-eazel contributors think they have been contributing to
> > >   the GNOME project, not to Eazel.
> >
> >       A valid point, and perhaps GNOME is a good namespace for nautilus,
> > I cannot concieve of another program called nautilus in the GNOME
> > namespace however. Again the naming convention is mostly to help the ISV.
> 
yes, 'company' names are bad for open source software

> > > Objections to the directory hierarchy:
> > >
> > > * It adds no real benefit other than pleasing Michael's aesthetic
> > >   sense.
> >
> >       Hah =) I find this incredible. On one hand you are advocating
> > horrendously unique massive numbers, whilst you are saying on the other
> > that installing a load of files into an uregulated conflict prone file
> > space is a sensible thing ?
> 
> For reasons I stated in my message (but which you apparently snipped
> all instances of), IID conflicts are actually more severe than
> filename conflicts. You can install files with the same name in
> different prefixes if ncessary, but this will not help for conflicting
> IIDs. Further, filename conflicts will be discovered immediately at
> install time and can be dealt with by installing into a different
> prefix or renaming; while IID conflicts will not be discovered until
> things mysteriously break in some fashion, and cannot be resolved short
> of modifying the program source code in many cases.
> 
> >       I think to avoid the namespacing question is to seriously
> > underestimate the problem, that directory is whether one likes it or not a
> > namespace and it would be good to regulate it.
> 
> You can solve namespace conflicts in it by installing some of the
> files elsewhere. I don't see it as any more problematic than /usr/bin
> really. In fact, less so, because installing in a different prefix
> won't even result in worries over what is first in your path. Two
> files with the same name can both be in your OAFINFO_PATH just fine.
> 
IID conflicts can even cause harm if just one program is installed that
claims that name, but another program trys to activate the other one,
for
example if it is referenced in a file.
The users might get very hard to find problems with that.

Thatswhy the IID namespace is a bit, just a bit, more important than the
file
namespace.

> >       Furthermore, the issue of gconf [ which I understand has paths too
> > ] is an interesting one.
> 
> I'm not sure how gconf ties into this.
> 
Would be nice




All in all i think the names in bonobo must be really unique!!
But just an random string is bad because the user or administrator
doesn't know what it means(just look in the shell extensions part of
the windows registry).
I think a short name and an appended UUID are good because they are both
human readable and unique. The pasting work for using hardcoded IIDs is
okay
because it's not that much work in the end.





Martin