[PD] external loading suggestion

[Krzysztof Czaja]

hi Guenter,

I doubt publishing unambiguous patches would be any easier with
filesystem-based extern hierarchies, unless:

1. the loader is changed (currently, having a default prepend in
extra, and another version of prepend in extra/evenbetter, the
clash between [prepend], and [evenbetter/prepend] remains, because
if the latter is created first, it will register the plain
"prepend" name as well);

2. the -path option is either banned, or stored with the patch;

3. using libraries is banned.

While (1) is probably doable, (2) and (3) seem not.

Anyway, I think, its easier to ask developers for renaming all but
one of each of the equivocal classes (e.g. by adding an explicit,
obligatory prefix), instead of 1. asking developers for never
including potentially clashing classes in a library, and 2. asking
maintainers for placing all potentially clashing externs in
separate subdirectories, and 3. asking users to always prepend
subdir name to any potentially ambiguous object name in any
published patch.

Never using extern hierarchies, we get an extra bonus of always
being able to safely resolve abstraction names against potentially
shadowing class names, by placing all abstractions a level down
relative to the main patch's directory, and releasing the whole
bundle as a tarball.

Krzysztof

guenter geiger wrote:
...
> This actually means that we have a namespace system implemented, we just
> have to use it.