Re: Namespace advice for Git-related package

[email protected] (Smylers)
Newsgroups perl.module-authors
Message-ID <[email protected]>
James E Keenan writes:

> I am in the process of developing a CPAN library which I am
> considering calling Git-Multisect-Perl. ...
> 
> 'Multisect::' is chosen to contrast with 'bisect'.

That hadn't occurred to me. I read it as a contraction of ‘multiple
sections’ or similar.

> When we speak of bisection in the context of, say, Perl 5 core
> development and use of Porting/bisect.pl, we're usually looking for a
> single answer to a question, e.g., at which specific commit did this
> test file start to experience failures.  Recently, however, we have a
> case where a file failed in different ways over many months.  That's
> the actual use case which led me to develop this library.

However, ‘bisect’ is a well known word for this activity. Sometimes with
naming things it's clearer to be familiar-but-approximate rather than
accurate-but-obscure. Once the name has got somebody's attention, the
docs can explain nuances.

I think Git::MultiBisect or Git::Bisect::Multiple get the idea across
more obviously.

> The '::Perl' in the namespace is intended to say, "This is a way to
> apply the concept of multisection to typical needs in Perl development

Unfortunately I don't think it does that.

A suffix of ::Perl usually indicates that it's implemented in Perl —
either because there's also an ::XS variant, or it's a port of a library
that originated in Java or some other language.

I'm not sure there is anything which indicates ‘typical for Perl
development’. I'd omit that aspect from the name.

> we don't want to foreclose the possibility of future libraries which
> use git to perform multisection in other problem spaces."

Let any hypothetical future rival Git-multi-bisect distribution — and
there may not be one — come up with an adjective that distinguishes
itself from yours.

Alternatively, Devel::Git::MultiBisect would indicate that this is a
tool for Perl development use.

Good luck!

Smylers
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