Re: some random thoughts on naming conventions for Lua libraries/modules

[书呆彭, Peng Yi <nerditation@...>]

在 2016/6/11 4:38, Hisham 写道:
> On 10 June 2016 at 02:14, 书呆彭, Peng Yi <nerditation@outlook.com> wrote:
>
> My reasoning for the latter is that using inconsistent, `local x =
> require "y"` types of names is counterproductive: especially when
> looking at someone else's code, having to keep in mind how a module
> author decided to call a well-known library is an avoidable extra
> cognitive load, and having to skim back and forth to look at the
> require() list is annoying.

that extra cognitive load is exact my concern. besides reading others' code,
I sometimes felt it unnecessarily annoyed when search in the documents.

> I'd say this was an unfortunate decision when LuaFileSystem was first written (not to
> mention that the name of this library is super confusing, since
> LuaFileSystem is not, well, a file system — this is not a rhetorical
> point, it _did_ leave me puzzled the first time I saw the name, back
> in the day).
true. it is very important to choose a proper name for a project.

even though LuaFileSystem is so widely used, and people have got to remember the
module name anyway, I see why people complain about that: when I was trying
the API of LuaFileSystem, I typed `require 'luafilesystem'` in the interactive
interpreter session; that was my expectation for a module installed via
`luarocks install luafilesystem`.

> So, in short, the way I try to do things is to keep it simple:
>
> project Foo, rockspec foo, local foo = require("foo")
>
> I think it's the path of least surprise for users of the project. :)

thanks, I'll try to comply with it. it is really good practice.



another common case is how to name bindings to other libraries? suppose there is
a C library dealing with yaml named libyaml2 (I just made up this name, I didn't
check whether there is really such a library), which project name would you choose
for a Lua binding to that library: LuaLibyaml2, LLibyaml2, Lua-Libyaml2, LuaYaml2,
LYaml2, yaml2Lua or libyaml2lua, or something else?

also, what about the module name to give `require`: yaml2, lyaml2, luayaml2,
libyaml2, llibyaml2, lualibyaml2, libyaml2lua, or something else?

> -- Hisham

--
the nerdy Peng / 书呆彭 / Sent from Thunderbird