I like almost all of this a lot. My only disagreement is on prefix
lists ... I wouldn't want to lose them, and in fact would prefer to
see them extended to recursive prefix lists (trees).
-Jason
On Nov 11, 10:12 am, "Stephen C. Gilardi" <squee...@mac.com> wrote:
> On Nov 10, 2009, at 9:08 PM, John Harrop wrote:
>
> > (ns foo.bar.baz
> > (:use [clojure.contrib.core :only (seqable?)]))
>
> > (and thus violates the usual clojure rule of using vectors rather
> > than lists for groupings that are not invocations -- that is,
> > function calls, macro calls, or special form calls).
>
> I agree it's too complicated and that examples would help.
>
> Rich has also encouraged a look at simplifying the whole thing in the
> past and I would like to work on that.
>
> Here are some of the ideas I've liked best for how to do it.
>
> - replace :use, :require, and :load with one common thing with good
> conventions and easy ways to configure away from convention
>
> - maybe call it :uses
>
> - require that each "libspec" (reference to a lib) be a vector,
> disallowing naked symbols and prefix extraction via prefix lists. This
> would mean that everything after :uses will be a vector which is known
> to be a complete specification of the dependency's name and how this
> lib uses it. (This regularity would help humans understand and outside-
> of-Clojure tools have an easier time parsing.)
>
> - don't "refer" any names from the target namespace into the current
> namespace by default
>
> - support ":only []", ":rename {}", ":exclude []", and ":refer-all
> true" options
>
> (:refer-all true is not strictly necessary as it's a synonym
> for :exclude [], but the latter is much less clear to the human reader)
>
> - automatically alias the leaf name of the lib as a reference to the
> lib:
>
> - (:uses [clojure.contrib.jmx]) would allow referring to the names
> in clojure.contrib.jmx by prefixing them with jmx/
>
> - disallow conflicts in leaf names, requiring one or the other lib
> to have an ":as" option giving another alias
>
> - open question as to whether using :only, :rename, :exclude,
> or :refer-all would suppress the automatic alias and require an
> explicit :as if an alias is also desired.
>
> - remove the special ":refer-clojure" clause in favor of an optional
> "[clojure.core]" within :uses that changes the default for
> clojure.core away from ":refer-all true"
>
> - (based on this thread) require that all seqs within :uses be vectors
> rather than lists.
>
> Here is a portion of an ns form before and after these changes:
>
> Before:
>
> (:refer-clojure :exclude [read])
> (:require (clojure.contrib [graph :as graph] [fcase :as fcase])
> [clojure.contrib.stream-utils :as su])
> (:use [clojure.contrib def except server-socket]
> clojure.contrib.lazy-xml
> [clojure.contrib.java-utils :only [as-str]]
> [clojure.stacktrace :only (root-cause)]
> [clojure.walk :only [postwalk]])
>
> After:
>
> (:uses [clojure.core :exclude [read])
> [clojure.contrib.graph]
> [clojure.contrib.fcase]
> [clojure.contrib.stream-utils :as su]
> [clojure.contrib.def :refer-all true]
> [clojure.contrib.except :refer-all true]
> [clojure.contrib.server-socket :refer-all true]
> [clojure.contrib.lazy-xml :refer-all true]
> [clojure.contrib.java-utils :only [as-str]]
> [clojure.stacktrace :only [root-cause]]
> [clojure.walk :only [postwalk]])
>
> (Over time I would expect many ":refer-all true" options to become
> more selective references once this change makes referencing in
> everything slightly more difficult.)
>
> I'd appreciate hearing ideas and critiques.
>
> --Steve
>
> smime.p7s
> 3KViewDownload
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "Clojure" group.
To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com
Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your
first post.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
