findlib name of camlzip

[Ashish Agarwal]

We notice the trunk version of camlzip has a new oasis file, which is great. However the findlib name has been set to "zip", as where we've always had it installed as "camlzip" (we install with godi). What should the name be? Should we stick with the name the godi package has been using for many years, or is there a good reason to change it to "zip"?

Thanks.

[Ashish Agarwal]

I do agree that using a "caml" or "ocaml" prefix is not a good idea. It is redundant. If you're using these libraries, you already know you are using OCaml. In this case, backwards compatibility is probably a good idea, but it seems like there's no consensus on that if Debian and GODI have been doing it differently.

Thus, we could go with what we consider to be more correct, which I think is "zip".

On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 12:35 PM, Hezekiah M. Carty <h...@0ok.org> wrote:

I've asked the same question before.  Debian has apparently always had
"zip" as the findlib name, just as GODI has always had "camlzip".  I
don't remember who picked their name first, unfortunately.

If "zip" is the name in the official repository then it probably makes
sense to stick with that.

Hez

[Christophe TROESTLER]

On Mon, 13 Aug 2012 12:46:26 -0400, Ashish Agarwal wrote:
>
> [...] Thus, we could go with what we consider to be more correct,

> which I think is "zip".
>
> On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 12:35 PM, Hezekiah M. Carty <h...@0ok.org> wrote:
>
> > If "zip" is the name in the official repository then it
> > probably makes sense to stick with that.

I concur ― we should respect upstream decisions...

Best,
C.

[Ashish Agarwal]

So it seems most people agree that the findlib name should be "zip". How should make this fix? If we change the godi package, software expecting the name "camlzip" will break. Is there a good solution within godi to support both names, while marking "camlzip" as deprecated?

[Sebastien Mondet]

Hi

The  godi-zip  package could (easily?)  add Gerd's backwards-compatible solution ?

(i.e. a second findlib directory called "zip" with a META file containing one line

  directory="/path/to/the/other/one"

)

I've been testing it, everything is perfect with it.

Cheers

Seb

[Christophe TROESTLER]

Hi Gerd,

On Thu, 23 Aug 2012 15:29:13 +0200, Gerd Stolpmann wrote:

>
> Am 22.08.2012 20:52:10 schrieb(en) Sebastien Mondet:
> >
> > The godi-zip package could (easily?) add Gerd's backwards-compatible
> > solution ? (i.e. a second findlib directory called "zip" with a META file
> > containing one line
> > directory="/path/to/the/other/one"
> > )
> >I've been testing it, everything is perfect with it.
>

> If somebody wants to change godi-zip, please go on, and install the
> second META file. (I can do it too but not before the weekend.)

If you or the package maintainer can upload a new version during the
weekend, that will be nice! Maybe it is the "camlzip" directory which
should have the "redirection" META to emphasize the transition to the
fact that "zip" is now the official name ― the other one being kept
for backward compatibility.

Cheers,
C.

[Christophe TROESTLER]

On Mon, 27 Aug 2012 16:25:10 +0200, Gerd Stolpmann wrote:

>
> Am Donnerstag, den 23.08.2012, 20:49 +0200 schrieb Christophe TROESTLER:
> >
> > If you or the package maintainer can upload a new version during the
> > weekend, that will be nice! Maybe it is the "camlzip" directory which
> > should have the "redirection" META to emphasize the transition to the

> > fact that "zip" is now the official name οΏ½ the other one being kept
> > for backward compatibility.
>
> I did this change (for 3.12 and 4.00), even to the detail that the
> archive name is now zip.cm(x)a, and no longer camlzip.cm(x)a. I hope
> this does not cause problems.

Thanks.

C.

[Christophe TROESTLER]

On Mon, 27 Aug 2012 16:25:10 +0200, Gerd Stolpmann wrote:
>
> Am Donnerstag, den 23.08.2012, 20:49 +0200 schrieb Christophe TROESTLER:

> > If you or the package maintainer can upload a new version during the
> > weekend, that will be nice! Maybe it is the "camlzip" directory which
> > should have the "redirection" META to emphasize the transition to the

> > fact that "zip" is now the official name οΏ½ the other one being kept
> > for backward compatibility.
>

> I did this change (for 3.12 and 4.00), even to the detail that the
> archive name is now zip.cm(x)a, and no longer camlzip.cm(x)a. I hope
> this does not cause problems.

I am planning to remove the code to take care of that issue. Probably
tomorrow.

Cheers,
C.

[Ashish Agarwal]

I second the idea of having good names for libraries, and making the names consistent across archive files, the findlib package name, the godi package name, etc. For something like this to stick, we would need a well written proposal that is discussed on the main list, and then placed somewhere visible (such as in the ocamlweb project, currently served from ocaml-lang.org).

On Tue, Aug 28, 2012 at 7:58 AM, Adrien <camar...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi,

On 13/08/2012, Edgar Friendly <thele...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Long-time backwards compatibility is a good reason to use camlzip. I should
> be able to fix this when I get home from my current business trip.
>
> On the naming side, I look at the names of packages uploaded to oasis-db,
> and a disturbing percentage of them are "ocaml-foo", when they should
> probably be called just "foo".  i.e. when I'm looking for fileutils, it's
> not sorted under 'f', but is under 'o' for ocaml-fileutils.  Especially for
> findlib package names, there's no good reason I can think of to have the
> ocaml- prefix.  At one point in time, we had three copies of the camlzip
> package in oasis-db under different names; zip, camlzip and one more that I
> can't remember (maybe a capitalization variant).
>
> Am I making too big a deal of this?  Is there a good reason to prefix newly
> created package names with "ocaml" or in the case of really old packages,
> "caml"?

I think you're right. At least because it makes tab-completion annoying. :-)

I've already said that on IRC: I believe the name issue for findlib
packages is quite important. How serious can we look if we show
packages do not even _try_ to work on machines others than ours? And
is "zip" the same as "camlzip"? Maybe it's a completely different
binary.

We're typically shy of bothering others with trivial issues which
would take a few seconds to fix but over the years, they amount to
bigger ones. We have broken links, broken English, typos, varying
package names or structures. We really need to improve that and for
documentation and wording, it's a simple as a git clone, and reading
the document in vim, emacs or any editor rather than in our web
browser.

I'm far from perfect on that count and I don't usually have the time
but we should at least try; many small issues are trivial to fix.

And for upstream META files, quite often, it's because upstream
doesn't know ocamlfind but considering how unobstrusive it is, there's
basically no opposition to at least provide a META file. Send an
e-mail, inquire about it.

Regards,
Adrien Nader