On The Naming of Things

[Ian Bicking]

On Tue, 2002-10-29 at 08:54, Emile van Sebille wrote:
> Oleg Broytmann:
> > http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/2225
> 
> Almost funny in light of TMTOWTDI:  Python resists making major library
> decisions preferring to leave it to the individual, while Perl's
> 'first-through-the-gate-naming' wins the standard.

I can see the advantage to that sort of naming, but then the first
package becomes the standard -- when usually the *best* package is one
of the ones that comes later.

I'd rather see libraries use non-canonical names first, and then be
promoted into a canonical name.  It's hard to do that, though, except
through a blessing that discriminates among many valid possibilities to
determine one as the most successful.  Outside of the core library --
which grows, but slowly -- I don't see anyone who wants or has the
authority to do this.

  Ian