Re: Lua Ecosystem

[steve donovan <steve.j.donovan@...>]

On Sat, Nov 23, 2013 at 9:11 PM, Dirk Laurie <dirk.laurie@gmail.com> wrote:
> packages available for Ruby etc. And I say that if there are over 60000
> packages in an ecosystem, there might as well be none.  You'll never find
> the needle you need in such a haystack.

Once you get to that size, you absolutely need disciplined
namespacing. Despite its faults, Java insisted on this from the word
go.  Perhaps 5.1's module() confused the issue by making people
believe that long qualified module names were just more awkward to
use, whereas us modern users have got used to the 'local bob = require
'utils.xlib.bob' invocation.

I don't particularly mind all the JSON implementations, but they have
a tendency to require 'json' - rather confusing for the reader!

So namespacing replaces linear search with tree search, which is
better for computers. But for humans the key to efficient searching is
enough metadata to make accurate keyword searches possible, and a
ratings system that allows well-regarded modules to bubble to the top
of the heap (i.e. Google)

I'd wager that with +10,000 packages, there is going to be a lot of
crap (Sturgeon's Law).

steve d.