On 12/10/2003 8:08 PM, Stas Bekman wrote:

> Randy W. Sims wrote:
> 
>> 2) There is overlap between the (currently undocumented) 'provides' 
>> and the 'no_index' fields. I've reread the arguments on this, and 
>> while I agree with Ken that ideally we should specify what is provided 
>> rather than what is not, I feel this is one of those cases where the 
>> practical and the ideal don't sync. (This is kinda like the situation 
>> in Ruby, where methods are public unless specified; It seems bass 
>> ackwards at first until you look at how classes are generally written 
>> in practice.) I vote to document but deprecate the 'provides' field in 
>> favor of 'no_index'.
> 
> 
> Please don't deprecate either of the two. There is a place and time for 
> both keys, as you have observed. What's important is to define how they 
> overlap.
> 
> For example Apache provides Allow and Deny directives to configure 
> access permissions. You can read the spec on how the configuration 
> overlap and override each other here:
> http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/mod/mod_access.html#allow
> http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/mod/mod_access.html#deny
> Apache uses the Order directive to explicitly tell the overriding order:
> http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/mod/mod_access.html#order
> 
> I think META.yml could mimic that behavior 1:1.
> 
> Also I'd be in favour of having more consistent naming than 'provides' 
> and 'no_index' if they are kept together. So for example either 
> 'provides'/'hides' and index/no_index or similar.

Oh, bother.

I don't really have an objection to having both, but I'm not sure what 
the best solution is: Currently, Module::Build generates the 'provides' 
field, not sure what EU::MakeMaker or Module::Install generate. Many 
META.yml files are using 'private' & 'no_index' (see 
<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Module-Install/META.yml>). IIRC, PAUSE and 
possibly search.cpan.org are using 'private' and/or 'no_index'.

The good thing is that they're all in violation of the current spec. 
<http://module-build.sourceforge.net/META-spec.html>. :-)

I think I'd be inclined to vote for 'index'/'no_index' or 
'public'/'private', since they are known to be in use.

Randy.