[Oberon] Re:3 letter prefix (reserved)

[Charles Angelich]

>Message: 4
>Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2002 09:44:35 -0400
>From: "Douglas G. Danforth" <danforth at greenwoodfarm.com>
>Organization: Greenwood Farm Technologies LLC
>To: oberon at inf.ethz.ch
>Subject: [Oberon] Prefix
>Reply-To: oberon at inf.ethz.ch
>
>Charles Angelich wrote:
>> 
>> I would suggest that four letter prefix relevant only to the OS and it's
>> applications would be more useful and user-friendly than arbitrary
>> initials that mean nothing to me or any other computer user.
>
>More than four letters are possible with the current BlackBox prefix.
>For example:
>  System
>  BTrees
>  Audio
>  ...

I suspect at this point there is a divirgence.  BlackBox must be one of
the variants using subdirectories.  N-O Sys 3 uses just one directory.

A system of reserved 3 letter prefix may be OK for BlackBox users but
is BlackBox now the flagship variant for N-O Sys 3 users to follow?

>Oberon is written in a platform independent style hence no
>specific OS information should appear anywhere unless it
>specifically states that this is only for a specific OS.

Using predetermined well defined 4 or even 5 letter prefix that are
relevant to the purpose/function of modules would in no
way interfere with "platform independence".  Maintaining a database of
three letter reserved prefix interferes with just about everything I
can think of right now for every variant of Oberon.

Locating a binary for a particular purpose should be somewhat
intuitive, not an encrypted anagram.

>Again, for example
>  Host
>is a directory under BlackBox that holds host specific code.

Again, this is only relevant to those variants that support
subdirectories which N-O Sys 3 does not do.

>I would not expect anyone to know what Gft stands for.  It is
>only after one learns that, for example, an eigenvalue package exists 
>from Greenwood Farm Technologies and is called GftEigen that
>one would then know the meaning of the Gft prefix.
>
>There may be many other eigenvalue packages and so the user
>will establish some 'feeling' that GftEigen is good or bad
>depending upon experience in the same way that one learns
>that Buick or Nissan are good or bad depending upon experience.
>
>-Doug

Are you not willing to realize that were Oberon to become as
mainstream as Linux we would need another DNS lookup to be
able to maintain all of these three letter prefix and their
relevance, if any, to using Oberon?  This could become a
nightmarish arrangement in a short time.



Charles Angelich

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