[MLton] library naming

[Vesa Karvonen]

Quoting Stephen Weeks <sweeks at sweeks.com>:
> One potential problem in the new library project is the global
> namespace of library names.  I've been hesitating a bit about putting
> stuff in the new library project partially because of the problem of
> thinking of a name for my library.

I know what you mean.  I think that we should follow a process similar
to the one described here:

  http://boost.org/more/submission_process.htm

Issues such as relations to existing libraries and naming are discussed
during the submission process until a satisfactory solution is reached.
An important side-effect of having the discussions is the building of
confidence:  you know that there are others interested in the library you
are submitting and that you have reached basic agreement on some issues.

> In the interest of divvying up the global namespace, perhaps we should
> adopt a Java-like convention, so that, for example, I would start by
> creating the following:
> 
>  mltonlib/com/sweeks/basic/unstable
>
> The hope is to allow others to maintain repositories with library
> collections at other sites, and be able to merge multiple library
> collections on some client machine without conflicts.

Hmm...  I would hope that mltonlib would be more than just an ad hoc
collection of various people's libraries.  For example, in Boost and
Haskell Hierarchical Libraries, 

  http://boost.org/libs/libraries.htm
  http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/latest/html/libraries/index.html

libraries aren't (generally) named or located after their author's names.
I think that requiring the author of a library to negotiate a name (among
other things) for his library is good thing.  Also, in Boost, for example,
libraries are basically never just added to the collection.  Libraries
invariably go through an iterative refinement process during which they
are often "boostified" (see http://www.boost.org/more/faq.htm) before
being added to the collection.  I think that this is also a good thing.
Note that none of this precludes having more than one library for a single
purpose.

-Vesa Karvonen