Re: First pass at filesystem and OS steps note

On Wed, Aug 7, 2013 at 9:21 AM, Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com> wrote:

>
>
> > 4. Are we really going to create namespaces for every additional set of
> steps?  We didn't
> > create a new namespace for p:template et. al.  What is the deciding
> factor for a new namespace?
>
> In our exhaulted position as the XProc Working Group, we can add steps
> to the p: namespace, but I'm not inclined to add everything to that
> namespace.
>
> The file and OS steps seem like a nice, closed separate library. You only
> need them when you need them and only in the pipelines that need them.
> So I'm inclined to put them in a separate namespace.
>

Can we have one namespace instead of two?

Shouldn't zip/unzip/etc. be in a different namespace too by this logic?


> > I would really, really like to avoid a careless proliferation of
> namespaces for steps.  We
> > should think hard about how we want to name steps.
>
> Indeed. The tension being that I don't want a careless proliferation of
> "useful in the 1% case" steps in the p: namespace.
>
>
If we separate each major area into its own "module/library", we will end
up with a proliferation of namespaces.  The result will be that the user
will be required to declare a whole bunch of namespaces each time they
venture outside of the "core" steps we decided would be sanctioned as those
that are part of XProc.

I'm really on the fence on this.  I know a qualified name is our mechanism
and I don't have a solution for this otherwise, but it also means that
we're asking people to use a lot of namespaces and we know how much people
like that.

-- 
--Alex Milowski
"The excellence of grammar as a guide is proportional to the paucity of the
inflexions, i.e. to the degree of analysis effected by the language
considered."

Bertrand Russell in a footnote of Principles of Mathematics