Re: [boost] [spirit] Library naming and sub-libraries

Subject: Re: [boost] [spirit] Library naming and sub-libraries
From: Joel de Guzman (joel_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-01-03 21:35:38

Andrey Semashev wrote:
> Joel de Guzman wrote:
>> Andrey Semashev wrote:
>>> Joel de Guzman wrote:
>>>> Andrey Semashev wrote:
>>> Look, I'm not arguing that the library name is everything you need to 
>>> know about the library. I'm just saying that informative names really 
>>> do help to find what you need.
>>
>> How about Boost.Any? For the uninitiated, that could contain smart
>> pointers. I look at the current names. Only a very few give me
>> the enough information to know what they are for. What is assign?
>> What is enable_if? What is parameter? asio? ref? variant? mpl?
>> units? optional? etc. I wouldn't know by just the names!
> 
> Some of them are quite telling (iostreams, variant, filesystem, 
> datetime, threads, function, program_options, serialization, should I go 
> on?). At least, more telling than Qi. And I repeat myself, the name does 
> give a hint on the library purpose, and I find it useful.
> 
> I'm not sure what exactly you are trying to convince me in. Is it that 
> library names are irrelevant to their domain? Well, we could name 
> libraries like GUIDs, at least we would have world-wide unique names. Do 
> you think it would make life easier for users? Seriously, I'm not sure 
> what we are arguing about.

What I am trying to say is that the so-called "descriptive names"
are not always that descriptive either. Without real descriptions,
an uninitiated boost user can never tell what some of the names
listed above mean.

Regards,
-- 
Joel de Guzman
http://www.boostpro.com
http://spirit.sf.net