Re: [jamboost] target references

From: Rene Rivera (grafik.list_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-07-09 11:01:12

David Abrahams wrote:
> But how is this _not_ going to be
> confusing for people? It's confusing for me!

No arguments from me, I feel the same way about the current syntax.

> It seems to me that we really ought to be using some other character
> to separate properties from target names. For example, I see no
> reason we need to allow colons in target names. Why not:
> 
> @other_project/lib1:<link>static
> 
> Or, if there's some problem with colons, I could think of quite a few
> other eligible characters (for example, |), that would visually
> distinguish the target name from any properties we want to attach.
> Even "@" would work OK:
> 
> @other_project/lib1@<link>static
> 
> Though I guess I prefer the colon. 

Reusing the "@" would be another source of confusion. Overloading 
semantics for the same syntax is just asking for trouble -- yes I 
include Perl and C++ in that ;-)

Thinking very far ahead.. My suggestion would be:

@other_project/lib1?<link>static

This follows what is becoming the expected practice of URIs. Which means 
that in a far future we might be able to map that to things like:

http://some_project.org/bb/lib1?
>static
cvs://cvs.sf.net/some_project/lib1?<link>static

I know, it's far fetched, but it doesn't hurt to hope :-)

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