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[REBOL] Re: UHURU unit structure

From: joel:neely:fedex at: 30-May-2001 8:11

Gabriele Santilli wrote:
> Joel Neely wrote: > > > > > I'm willing to start with convention, and then figure > > out if we need the extra layer in the implementation. > > I'd rather keep the list of dependencies as small as > > possible, at least at first. > > I agree. It's just that a user might feel safe not to trash > the global context because he's inside an object, but this > is not true. If we really want to avoid name clashes then > we have to do that (thin) extra layer; otherwise, we're > leaving all up to the user, just exactly as it is now --- > which is not necessarily bad, but which was not our objective, > was it? >
Two quick thoughts... 1) The idea behind the every-unit-makes-an-object convention was just to standardize on something that would *allow* the user to place words in whatever context (s)he wished. The IMPORT mechanism was just a small assistance to that end. This certainly doesn't add any fundamental new capability to REBOL, but removes one more weak excuse not to play well with others ("I wasn't sure how ...") It also was intended to minimize the run-time overhead of using code provided by units. 2) The choice of the word "layer" was deliberate, and intended to recall the idea of protocol stacks. If we build the basics of UHURU (e.g, the INSTALL, MAKE, IMPORT for clients and some simple conventions for servers) we can always provide thicker walls and new utilization methods as later upgrades based on real experience with using UHURU. Alternately, we can pursue those discussions (among the users -- and with RT participation I hope!) in parallel to the discussion/development of server/transport/client stuff. -jn- ------------------------------------------------------------ Programming languages: compact, powerful, simple ... Pick any two! joel'dot'neely'at'fedex'dot'com