Jack Firth wrote on 06/23/2017 04:47 PM:
Pot-stirring question: do you think it would make more sense to name
the collection `math/glpk` instead of just `glpk`?
You're exactly right, it's a controversial question. :)
In general, for a flexible, decentralized ecology of third-party
packages, I think one usually wants either a flat namespace of package
names, or (like PLaneT or Java) a namespace that's qualified by the
package's origin. (Qualified by one of the developer's identities, and
whatever additional qualification the developer chooses to add. In the
case of Java, from the very start, they elegantly outsourced the
namespace qualification authority to the Internet domain name
registrations [*], but PlaneT's simple method was also reasonablee.)
One mitigating factor, in this particular case, is that the author is a
core Racket person, and there's an ancient legacy in core Racket, of
sometimes using hierarchical package names for purely topical taxonomy
purposes. IMHO, this is suboptimal, but it's ancient precedent, so I
wouldn't try debating it if core Racket continued to do this.
Just know that, every time I gaze upon a new hierarchical package name
used for purely topical taxonomy purposes, a single tear rolls down my
somber face.
[*] Java used the domain name registration system only to the extent
that, if you owned a domain name, you were socially considered to have
authority to name packages qualified with that name and subdomains.
They didn't use DNS itself at all, although you could imagine how DNS
*could* later be used to implement package signature authentication in a
distributed way, atop existing DNS infrastructure. (Not that I'm
advocating using DNS that way for Racket -- there some other ways of
implementing authentication that make more pragmatic sense, given where
we are. And I'm not going to argue for Java-like use of domain
registration authority in Racket, at least not unless it's part of
implementing a trust system for packages.)
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