Re: [rrg] belated msg: further description of the recommendation process

[Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]>]

On 2009-12-15 10:43, Noel Chiappa wrote:
>     > From: Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]>
> 
>     > I have a feeling that the mapping system should be very general in
>     > nature, in case the first cut at either the locator or identifier space
>     > proves to fall short.
> 
> There's an even better reason: to allow migration to new syntax (or new
> namespaces) for each type of name. Consider: it's easier to start deployment
> of a split in an existing namespace if both new namespaces have the same
> syntax as the original one. It minimizes the number of things you have to
> change, and also the cost of deployment, which makes it more likely you can
> get a positive cost/benefit on the change - without which the deployment will
> never happen. Once the split is more-or-less complete, then you can start to
> think about changing the syntax, or having a new (parallel in function)
> namespace.

Agreed.

> 
> Or, at least, that's my theory - and I'm sticking to it! :-)
> 
>     > Also I feel it should support hierarchy, even if we don't need a
>     > hierarchy from the start.
> 
> Hierarchy in the names in the namespaces, or a hierarchy _of_ namespaces?
> Sorry, wasn't quite clear from your brief comment.

I was thinking about a hierarchy of namespaces, but in fact we probably
need the generality to support hierarchical names too. I don't think that
needs to make the simple case inefficient. Just make a couple of the basic
data definitions recursive, and you've got both hierarchies.

   Brian