RE: [Caml-list] Namespace proposal

["Gurr, David (MED, self)" <David.Gurr@med.ge.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Fernando Alegre [mailto:fernando@cc.gatech.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2002 10:46 AM
> To: caml-list@inria.fr
> Subject: Re: [Caml-list] Namespace proposal
> 
> 
> On Thu, Aug 15, 2002 at 12:13:47PM -0500, Gurr, David (MED, 
> self) wrote:
> > 
> > >  For me package is not a modules collection, but just
> > > a way of multi-word module naming. It's not so easy to
> > > give short and still adequate names to the modules, but
> > > something like Db.Core.Storage looks much better then
> > > Dbstorage, and Storage can still be accessed just as
> > > "Storage" from modules of the same "package". Just a naming
> > > way, nothing more.
> > 
> > And what happens when you need to abstract over a 
> module/sub-package? -D
> 
> I think a naming convention like this is definitely needed, 
> but in order
> not to be confused with sub-modules, a different character 
> should be used.
> For example:
> 
> Db/Core/Storage could be a legal module name (in 
> Db/Core/storage.ml), and
> Db.Core.Storage could be a module hierarchy defined in Db.ml, and
> Db/Core/Storage.Medium could be a submodule defined in 
> Db/Core/storage.ml,...
> 
> An added advantage of this syntax is that it is consistent 
> with the overall
> esthetics of the OCaml language (i.e., ugly). :-)
> 
> Fernando
> 

I agree with the ugly part.  But it is consistent with
C not OCaml, IMHO. The difference between structures 
(ie first order modules) and packages as far as I can 
see is that you can abstract over modules and you can 
individually type check modules. If you have a language
where abstraction and type checking are non-existent
then packages might be a fine thing.  Separate compilation
for nested modules and a name mangling scheme for their
file names might be useful for OCaml.  -D
 

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